LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

%pX^'^- ©rxnrW 1^ 

Slielf2l74:c>:Al3 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



MADONNA 

and Other Poems 



For permission to reprint 
many of these poems, thanks 
are due to the various 
magazines and periodicals 
in which they originally 
appeared 



Se'ven hundred and fifty copies printed for America ana 
England 



MADONNA 

and OtKer Poems 

HARRISON 5. MORRIS 




PHILADELPHIA g-LONDON 
J.B.LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

M.D.cccxcrr 



dsy-^^ 



^ 



On 



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Copyright, 1894, 

BY 

J. B. LippiNcoTT Company. 



V Contents 

PAGE 

Madonna 13 

The Lonely-Bird 15 

Marsyas . . ■ 17 

A Garden guest 21 

Wood Robin 26 

The Daffodil 30 

Oracle ; . . 31 

To a Comrade 33 

Hay Scents 38 

To a Fallen Pine-Tree 41 

Parable 44 

Day Dreamerie 45 

A Winged Oracle 48 

The Return of Spring 51 

A Woodland Interview , ■ 53 

Landscape 

Three Weeks before Spring 59 

Vespers 62 

Mid-Days of June , 63 

Of a Little Brook 66 

Sun in the Willows 67 

Evening in the Fields 68 

7 



a CONTENTS 

PAGE 

After a Week of Rain 70 

The Cricket 71 

Clouds at Sundown 72 

The Passing Gust 73 

August 74 

To a Sycamore 75 

The Day after Summer 76 

Winds and Leaves 77 

Through Fallen Leaves 78 

One weeping by the Wayside 80 

A Touch of Frost 81 

Birds of Passage 82. 

Oaober 83 

November Snow-Fail 85 

Winter Sunset 87 

Winter 88 

Song 

Naked Boughs 93 

You and I 94 

Woodfellows 96 

Fairy Gold 97 

Succory 98 

Clearing Off 100 

To a Chrysanthemum loi 

The Winter Wind 102 

Sadie 103 



CONTENTS 9 
PAGE 

The Earthworm 105 

Storm 106 

Douzabelle \ 107 

A Pine-Tree Buoy 108 

Fickle Hope 109 

A Primer 1 10 

The Hermit Thrush 11 1 

The Hedge 112 

Mother of the Years 114 

What Difference? 116 

Reading Sartor Resartus 117 

The Almsman 118 

Leafless 119 

The Dawn of Christmas 120 

Good-Night 17,2 

Story 

Love's Revenge 125 

Amymone 152 

The Grave-Digger 160 

A Roadside Portrait 164 

XVIII Sonnets 

Fragrance and Song 171 

To Poverty 172 

Duality 173 

Orchard-Lore 174 

Homer 175 



lO CONTKNTS 

PAGE 

A Greek Panel 176 

Atalanta 177 

Mohammed and Seid 178 

On hearing an Old Piano 179 

Sudden Noise in the Street T ... 180 

At Daylight 181 

Oblivion 182 

Wood-Tryst 183 

Incantation 184 

A Touch of Nature 185 

F. W 186 

Walt Whitman 187 

At Walden Pond 188 

Trivia 

To Arcady 151 

Under-Bough , 153 

Daphnis 154 

A Rival of Orpheus 195 

Witch-Music 198 

An Idler's Catch 199 

A Forest Catch 2,01 

Phyllis . 203 

" The Trystall Tree" 2.04 

Lydian Airs 205 

A Catch 206 

Catches 208 



CONTENTS I I 

PAGE 

A Wooing Catch 209 

A Change of Face 210 

At King of Prussia Inn 211 

Comrade Ease 213 

Arcady 215 

Of a Little Girl 217 

Under-Tree 220 

A Modern Eclogue 223 

The Footpath Way 224 

A Portrait in Distemper 226 

After Rain 228 




HE sloping street ran down a little hill 
And touched the tide ; 
The clustered town was lying warm and still 
By the water-side. 

I wandered up amid the noonday heat 
Through humble doors. 

Where leafy shadow lay on path and seat 
And open floors. 

A tiny town it was of yellow walls 

For toiling folk. 
Where river boom and hurrying engine-calls 

The silence broke. 

But like a vision on the narrow way. 

Divinely sweet. 
Within the mother's arms a baby lay 

Beside the street. 

'Twas under shadow of the maple boughs 

She sat at rest, 
A lowly mother by her simple house. 

Her babe at breast ; 

2 ^ 13 



f 



14 MADONNA 

A slender matron of a score of years. 

With soft black eyes ; 
Full of delights that trembled into fears 

Young-mother wise. 

She bent, and gazed upon the little head. 

Nor heard a sound ; 
Her lips, drawn up to bless, were tender red 

And kissing-round. 

But fainter than her cheek's autumnal rose, 

A pale sweet glow 
Lay round her, as if wings in white repose 

Guarded her so. 

Most like it was the magic color made 

By some old brush: 
A halo like a light within a shade, 

A holy hush ! 

And I — what though the steaming mills awoke 

The heated air ? 
What though the rattling engine through the smoke 

Made echo there ? — 

I crossed the barrier years and won the land 

Of tenderest art. 
And knew the golden masters hand to hand 

And heart to heart. 




J ay crystal in 

^ the curving tnountaiTi clecp5- 



THE LONELY-BIRD 



IN THE ADIRONDACKS 



O DAPPLED throat of white ! Shy, hidden bird ! 
Perched in green dimness of the dewy wood. 
And murmuring, in that lonely, lover mood, 
Thy heart-ache, softly heard. 

Sweetened by distance, over land and lake. 

Why, like a kinsman, do I feel thy voice 
Awaken voices in me free and sweet ? 
Was there some far ancestral birdhood fleet 
That rose and would rejoice : 

A broken cycle rounded in a song ? 

The lake, like steady wine in a deep cup. 
Lay crystal in the curving mountain deeps ; 
And, now, the air brought that long lyric up 
That sobs, then falls and weeps. 
And hushes silence into listening- hope. 

15 



l6 THE LONELY-BIRD 

Is it that we were sprung of one old kin. 
Children of brooding earth, that lets us tell. 
Thou from thy rhythmic throat, I deep within. 
These syllables of her spell. 

This hymned wisdom of her pondering years ? 

For thou hast spoken song-wise, in a tongue 
I knew not till I heard the buried air 
Burst from the boughs and bring me what thou 
sung. 
Here where the lake lies bare 
To reaching summits and the azure sky. 

Thy music is a language of the trees. 

The brown soil, and the never-trodden brake ; 
Translatress art thou of dumb mysteries 

That dream through wood and lake ; 

And I, in thee, have uttered what I am ! 



MARSYAS 




FINDING THE PIPE CAST 
AWAY BY MINERVA 

'NDER an oak on Taurus' side. 
Wrapped deep in grass and 

lazy-eyed. 
And idle and warm and full 
of sleep. 

Lay Marsyas where the shade was deep ; 
For noon had found him far in the sun. 
Where berried vines in the grasses run. 
Gathering sweets for a long day's rest 
Under the green on Taurus' breast. 

Anon he'd whistle some wood-note 

Flung by love from a wood-bird's throat ; 

Or, ever anon, look up the boughs 

And whistle the note the wild wind blows ; 

Or yawn, and reach for cooler grass. 

And watch the whispering field-things pass 

With twitter and tiny roundelay. 

Till hushed asleep in the drowsy day. 

'Twas a tuft of oaken trees that rose 
Like a ring of leaves ; a mountain close ; 

2* 17 



i8 



A shaded house of bough and bole. 
Where birds for rest and water stole ; 
For down the midst in a laughing flight 
A runnel tripped it, osier dight. 
And paused in many a netted pool 
Where the roots of rushes curled to cool. 

And none save shepherds, noon-forespent. 
When sun crept down the shady bent 
And drove the drowsy flocks with heat 
Where watered blades were fresh and sweet. 
Or swooned them into nests of leaves 
Under the bending oaken eaves — 
None knew the nook save pastor-boys 
Who loved to dream to a runnel's noise. 

Far come was Marsyas through the trees 
With blowing fell and shaggy knees 
And sunburned throat and daylight eyes 
And mouth that rounded singing-wise. 
A rambler was he of the fields. 
Well learned in what the season yields ; 
But lazy slumber liked him best 
Lulled on by birds unmanifest. 

Full green it was, and well himthought 
Some forest-god the close had wrought 
To be a tryst for satyr-rings 
And dancers, light with ankle-wings. 



MARSYAS 19 

So deeming, yawned and dipt each palm 
In the dappled grass where the shade was calm. 
And clasping the stalks of a little sheaf. 
Drew nosegays up of flower and leaf. 

So reaching, found he a pebble-stone. 
Damp with the earth where it lay alone ; 
And outward idling hand and foot 
Drew up to his lips a notched root. 
" Blow, Marsyas !" murmured the sleepy air ; 
" Blow, Marsyas, blow ! for a song is there !" 
" Blow, fellow !" the leafage coaxed. " Give heed ! 
For a song is caught in the cloven reed !" 

" See how it fits thee at the lip ; 

So — lightly touch with finger-tip ;" 

And hearken ! shivering up the trees 

A slender throat of music flees. 

So tripped, from swinging limb to limb, 

A throat with melody at the brim. 

As if a well of liquid song 

Had bubbled where the grass was long. 

The airs he blew were learned of old 

In pasture ways, of the wood-folk trolled. 

Or sung by his dam a morning-tide 

When the green was new on the mountain-side. 

Of leaves they were, and life and love 

In terraced town and dusking grove. 



Of Pan with wanton laughter shook 
At ringlet frolic in forest nook. 

Nor saw he, blowing all he could. 
Near-clustered faces through the wood ; 
Nymphs far out-leaning from the hold 
Of woodmen brown with bearded gold ; 
A throng of water-girls come near. 
With wide-blue eyes and dread to hear. 
Yet charmed from forth their reedy caves 
By songs unknown to their singing waves. 

And forest creatures crowding all 
The leaves that fell like a lattice wall. 
With up-pricked ear and tuned hoof 
And arms that hardly held aloof; 
While shepherds in the open plain 
Sung mimic answer to the strain. 
And happy birds, new-taught to sing. 
Re-echoed back the pipe playing. 

Day-long he trilled in the couched green 
Till level shadows sloped the treen ; 
Day-long he blew his antic glees 
Heedless of tiptoed companies ; 
Then, when the stars were thick in the boughs 
And sheep-bells tinkled time to house. 
He, hoodwinked with the new delight. 
Went fluting ditties down the night. 



A GARDEN QUEST 



TTE was a knight of sable mail ; 

■■■ ■*■ She was a rose, a rose ! 

" Say, sweet knight, for the moon is pale 

And a light wind blows. 

Shall we wander down in the garden close 
For a tale ?" 

II 

Nay, she is wanton. Knight. Beware ! 

" But her mouth is small and sweet." 
Hear no word of her honeyed snare ! 

" But her step is fleet. 

And gold, like the ears of garnered wheat. 
Is her hair." 

Ill 

Yea, but her throstle throat's a lie 

And her ringlet curl 's a cage ! 
** An I go not down I were meet to die 

For a craven page. 

Lady, the leaf-ways wait an age : 
Are we nigh ?" 



A GARDEN QUEST 



IV 



** Knight, it is over the open mead 

Where the moon-white leaves hang lov\^ ; 

Where a hundred drow^sy highways lead 
From the lands below ; 
Where dances move and the musics blow 
From the reed. 



" And ever the waters play at rhyme 

On the cool white marble rim. 
And the dusks are deep of laurel and lime 

And of beechen limb. 

And love-lutes and low laughters swim 
Through the time." 

VI 

" But, Lady, the road-way winds and weaves. 

" Nay, we are there, we are there. 
And a woven trellis trims our eaves 

From the spying air. 

And the plots without are silver fair 
Through the leaves. 

VII 

" But the silks within are soft to see. 
With love wrought over all ; 



A GARDEN QUEST 2^ 

And love, in a marble mimicry. 
Runs round the wall : 
Where wantons hold a knight in thrall 
Who would flee." 

VIII 

" O loveless knight ! O tale untrue ! 

For lo ! how I bend and be 
Marked of thy signet kiss to do 

Thine errantry." 

" But, Knight, must a lady kiss, nor see 
Who would woo ? 

IX 

" And raise thy casque, for I fain would read 

The legend of thy lips. 
Nay, love can make but a little speed 

In the eyes' eclipse. 

Come, where the dragon fountain drips 
And be freed." 



And the knight laughed loud, and the lady lay 

In the tumbled silks at his side ; 
Yet he kissed her once ere she had her way 

Through his visor wide. 

" But thy lips are chill as the dew," she cried, 
" Ere the day." 



24 A GARDEN QUEST 

XI 

And she set each way of his visored head 

A long, white, lily hand. 
" But, Lady, a peril's there," he said. 

With a soft command ; 

Yet she wound his neck in a tressed strand 
On her bed. 

XII 

And her fine mouth loosened into lust. 
And her round cheeks fell to the bone. 

And her long arms bound his iron bust. 
And her lips made moan. 
How : " love's but a crimson flower blown 
In the dust." 

XIII 

"And, Knight," quoth she, " dost love me well ?" 

And an outer mirth blew in. 
" And, Knight," she cried, " thy passing-bell ! 

Behold ! I am Sin !" 

Yet he kissed her once on her lips grown thin 
To the knell. 

XIV 

" But show thy losel looks !" she saith : 
*' Who takes my kiss for a grace ?" 



A GARDEN QUEST 25 

And she caught his casque ; but her quickened 
breath 
Grew faint apace. 

And he said, " Behold ! Am I fair of face ? 
I am Death !" 




WOOD ROBIN 

Thou minstrel of the middle forest close. 

Dweller in oaken deeps and bathed with dew. 
Clear celebrant of after-shower tides. 

When twigs drip and the freshened west wind 
blows 
Fragrance and music all the meadows through. 
And, last, takes up thy mellow grief and glides 
To casement sides. 

Perchance to kindle ashen love anew. 

Or soothe with reverent mourning lesser woes ! 



Wood Robin, like a player whose broken heart 
Makes memory into music, sitting lone 
Amid the boughs of summer in a wood. 

So singest thou ! Across the leaves that part 
26 



WOOD ROBIN 27 

At roadsides ; by the cooling monotone 
Of brooks; deep in the green-arched amplitude, 
Thy mimic mood 
Calls thither maiden, lover, pipes low blown. 
And all the tears love-tempted set astart. 

The twilight is thy season. Then in leaves 
Threaded with dusk, thy loose and liquid note 
Shakes in the air, and down the silence pours 

Melodious incense. All the verdurous eaves. 
Trembling with night, take heart. Thy lyric 

throat 
Sends welcome to the herald of the stars — 
But those sad bars ! 

Speftres that haunt thy song ! With them I float 

Where youth sits weeping in the yellow sheaves. 

What passion in thy heart ! What joy of old ! 

Remembrance of thy bodied soul before 

Wings budded and thou wast an earth-brown 
bird: 
Trilling love ditties — when the barred fold 

Lay tranquil in the twilight — from thy door ; 

Or wandering leaf-touched. Hamadryad-heard, 
Where zephyrs stirred 
Intricacies of moonlight on the floor 
Of forest ways scent-sweet and d'Swy-cold ! 



28 WOOD ROBIN 

For thou wast once a shepherd, led thy sheep 
Flute-charmed to the shady fallow dells. 
And played, and loved thy curds, and watched 
the wood 
For sight of one tanned gleaner, who would peep 
Black-eyed and laughing, crowned with coronels 
Of wood-flowers — then with sudden wanton 
mood. 

Now to be wooed. 
Run to thine arms, and tangle thee with spells 
And make strange musics down thy twin-tubes 
leap. 

But hearken ! now again the liquid pain 

Drenches the leaves ! Who could forget thy 
woe ? 

And she was like a bud that reaches in 
A lattice in the morning, but again 

Is wind-caught ere the loosened petals blow! 

Forsaken wast thou of thy mated kin. 
Whose heart to win 
One, satyr-tempered, set his eyes aglow ; 
And thou ! Thy bleeding note was vain, O vain ! 

Yet not in vain thou singest from thy height 
In darkened domes of green, what time the 
sun 



WOOD ROBIN 29 

Blows kissing radiance to the chestnut tops. 
And frighted runnels hurry from the night — 
Not all in vain thine ecstasy ! For one 
With heart in tune has listened by thy copse 
And nightly stops 
Touched into thought, until thy strain is done 
And stars are winking downward still and white ! 



THE DAFFODIL 

' I ^HY buds break through the sod 

To show their gold to God. 
The blue yearns down to bless 
Their tiny tenderness ; . 
And midway of the crystal air 
Are shapes upon a breezy stair 
With messages from him to thee : 
Keep heart, thy beauty pleases me ! 
Keep heart, my winds shall blow above. 
My rains shall wet thee with their love. 
My dews shall dapple on thy face. 
My sun shall warm thee into grace ; 
Then, when thy bodied leaves are gone. 
Behold ! I'll send another dawn ; 
Up through a crevice in the blue 
Thy little leaves shall bud anew, 
So, at each birth, thy face shall be 
Forever nearer unto me ! 

This was the message ; then the stair 
Folded along the singing air. 
And, like a beacon on a hill. 
Burnt out in gold the daffodil. 



3° 



ORACLE 

THE winds come to me 
Full of the wonderful things 
The trees have said. 
Still-standing 
On the spring-tinged hill-side. 

They bear me a burden of joys. 

Sweet utterless prayers. 

From the trees 

For a birth that warms their limbs. 

As a mother feels to her child. 

Loves it past love of the earth. 

Knows 'tis a dearer part 

Of herself — 

So say the trees to the winds 

Of the tender green-skinned buds. 

Born of them, fed of them, loved of them ! 

The winds bring songs of their own : 

Of a sweet-breathed God 

Who quickens his earth and erefts 

Blossoms above her breast. 

Yet not alone that ye eat 

And not alone that ye love 

Doth he sprinkle leaves in the' land : 

31 



32 



His wisdom flows in the green 

As the words flow out of men ; 

The woods are his large rescripts. 

And the flowers his song. 

His proverbs stand in the serried corn 

And wave in the sun-shot wheat ! 

Who knoweth it, saith the wind. 

Shall find his scripture green. 

Hedges and leaning grass 

And leaves are the words he writeth. 

One omen is in them all : 

Life, though it wither, dies not. 

For he is the breath of its mouth. 




TO A COMRADE 



The leaves have come — he comes not — he is dead ! 

The bugle vv^inds of April blow their note ; 
The little buds dance in v^^ith dewy head 
And courtesy to their lover where they spread ; 

The robin fills her throat. 

Making the customed answer to his oat. 
But he — alas ! his fingered airs are fled ! 



II 

He knew to gather lyrics from the leaves 

And breathe their sweetness through the quiet 

closes ; 
And knew the rustled converse of the roses 
About the edges of the country eaves ; 

And where the dappled sunlight dozes. 
And where the ditties wake the Sheaves, 

33 ■ 



34 TO A COMRADE 

The silence lulled him into long reposes 
And happy world-reprieves. 

Ill 

Born was he for the uplands where the sun 

And morning hill-tops meet. 
Where breezes through the yellow barley run 

With dimpling feet ; 

His heart went thither, though he trod the street. 
He left his toil undone 

To listen to the runnel eddies fleet ; 
He better loved the reveries won 

In some old tree-retreat. 

The mid-bough twitter and the homeward bleat. 
And twilight village fun ! 

IV 

But tyrant toil is harsh with what it owns. 

Nor lets the prodigal forget 

His penetential debt ; 
And, late, his merry music ebbed in moans. 

Who loved the noonday minuet 

Of sun and shadow forest-met. 

The freshened herbage bending in the wet 
And birds in thicket-wones. 
Who touched his pipe to a thousand tender tones. 

He passed us woe-beset ! 



TO A COMRADE 35 



Song slept within him like the winter buds 

That wait the under-whisper of the year. 

Then break the crumbling loam and reappear 
And work a beauty in the naked woods. 
He waited, oh, how long ! for happier moods. 
And walked the city's peopled roods 

With music at his ear : 

With murmur of the leaves he loved to hear 
In day-long solitudes ; 

But songs that should have made his presence 
dear. 
And purchased love and long beatitudes. 

Like early blossoms drenched with many a tear 

Lay withered on his bier. 

VI 

The memories are full, the years are few. 

That bound us into comradeship complete. 

We came together in the rainy street 
At night, nor either knew 
How close the current of our being drew. 

How wide the circles rippling from our feet. 
It was as if a pair of leaves that grew 
Bough-neighbors ere the severing autumn blew 

Had come again to meet. 



36 TO A COMRADE 

And, finding solace in each other, knew 

Remembrance of the far-off summer sweet ! 

VII 

We made a bond of song, we made us nights 
Arustle with the buskined forest flights. 

And pipe-reveilles of the Doric days. 

We found our attic full of arching ways ; 
Or, bound afield, beheld the sights 
Embalmed in old poetic rites. 

And saw the slender dances of the fays ! 

VIII 

For he was learned in all leafy books 

And knew the winding region of romance ; 

His fingers fitted to the olden reeds ; 

And, when the music eddied, in his looks 
Came vision of the wood, the circled dance. 

And all the secret sweetness of the deeds 
By forest brooks ! 

His riches were an idle dreamer's meeds ; 
But yet he gave his best for others' needs. 
And nurtured with his love the seeds 

Of worth grown up in sordid city nooks. 

IX 

And, last, his music ebbed. He trod the street. 
Pursuing hopes of melancholy made : 



TO A COMRADE 37 

The lights that ever seem to fade 
And leave the midnight darker by retreat. 

The quiet counsel of the trees 
He heeded not, nor sought the country peace. 

But, like a quarry goaded, like a shade 
Sw^ept on in darkness, all his being beat 

In maddened seas 
Headlong against the granite of defeat. 

He trusted not, but made 

Foemen of guardian law^s that give us aid 
And lost his treasured music in the breeze. 

X 

, So like a sheaf, wherein young birds have learned 

Their matin music ere the grain be eared 
And glancing sickles go abroad the field. 
He lay storm-broken. Fame, that would have 

turned 
With but a little wooing, could but yield 

A chaplet of her young leaves seared. 

And he who was to earth endeared 
By tendril loves that clasped him like a vine ; 
Who held her soil as something sweet and fine. 

And loved her still, though severed from her long : 
He lies, in union grown divine. 

Within her bosom, whence a flower-flight. 

Sole guerdon of his dreams of^day and night. 

Springs from his seeds of song ! 
4 



HAY SCENTS 

■^^O wassailer that for pleasure 
■^ ^ SnufFeth winey odors, treasure 
Like this whifF of hay hath got 
From his beaded bibbing pot ! 

I can journey at its spell 
Where tall gleaners in a dell 
Gather sheaves and sickle corn 
Yellowed like Osiris' horn. 
Till the ring that weds the day 
And timid twilight fades away 
From the circle of the west 
And loaded toilers turn to rest. 

Then, within the dusky glow, 
I beck and ask them as they go : 
Matrons, would ye live in Spring, 
When they chirp that now can sing. 
When the ears ye carry dead 
Sprout untasselled ? Straight they said 
Naught hath price in land or sea 
Save our gold maturity ! 
So, with ponderous paces slow, 
Down the sloping shadows go 
Into night, and leave me here 
By the blazing ingle-cheer. 
38 



HAY SCENTS 39 

Then, with musing look aground. 

Pacing through a wood profound. 

Where the knotted chestnut girds 

Balconies for mated birds ; 

Where up-flutters Romeo thrush 

To his Juliet's leafy bush. 

And the tiniest panting throat 

Ripples Dante's dearest note ; 

Then I tread adown the trees. 

Musing over olden glees, 

Till, like dew at edge of dawn. 

Dancing girls, far passion gone. 

Come upon the van of spring 

With timbrel touch and trumpeting. 

Loose in lawny garb and light 

As swallows winging into night — 

Wheeling in a wild carouse 

Underneath just-budded boughs. 

So, to hear their frolic mirth, 

I creep along the clodded earth 

To a bower thatched with leaves 

Broken from the apple eaves ; 

Lie and watch a jolly hour. 

Aching, once to pluck a flower 

From the bosom of the belle 

Whose ankles trip the round most well. 

Till comes nigh me, all ablush 

From the dizzy rounding^rush. 



4-0 HAY SCENTS 

Lo ! a nymph with hair like hay, 
A slender, beauteous strayaway ! 
Her I beckon ; no surprise 
Flutters to her bluebell eyes ; 
But as one who knows no wrong 
She comes and lies the turf along. 
While I question : Wouldst thou love 
Better Autumn's chilly grove. 
Where the loads of bulging fruit 
Shiver to the wind's salute ; 
Where the boughs that break in green 
Now, with plenteous pippins lean. 
And this tender, pillowy grass 
Hides the yeomen as they pass ? 
And she answer made : 'Tis told 
By the Spring-tide sages old. 
Buds can never roses be 
Till is lost simplicity ; 
Wrinkled wives were merry makes ; 
Wisdom's kin are ancient aches ; 
Naught hath price in land or sea 
Save our young simplicity ! 

Then at crackle of the oak — 
Hearken ! was it fairy folk ? 
Nay ; I wandered from the ingle. 
Dreaming, to a budded dingle 
'Cause a sheaf of scented hay 
Made my pillow where I lay. 



TO A FALLEN PINE-TREE 



r^ SHAGGY Pine ! O Wood-Lyre ! 
^-^ The wind's sweet instrument 

O'er which, in revery bent. 
She swept a music full of sad desire ; 

Through many a day's delight. 

Through many a tender night. 
Trailing her fingers in thy green attire. 
Teaching thee song ; or from the Summer fire 
Or from the Winter's ire 

Drawing thee burden of a deeper might ! 

II 

The lyrics of her losel hour. 

The wanton kisses on thy strings. 
Where now are these that taught thee power 

To voice of forest things ? 
Where gone the sweetness of her mood. 
The prelude flutter, full of love. 

That eddied through thy wings 
And gushed in mellow tones the boughs above. 

Filling with wild imaginings 
The silent, sovereign spaces of ^he wood ? 

4* 41 



42 



TO A FALLEN PINE-TREE 



III 

For now thou liest like a broken lord 

Where late thy shadow fell in witchery : 
Thy mistress wind, where, where is she. 

Who touched thy heart to every murmurous chord ; 

Who wrought from leafage music. 
So letting run a span 

The spirit that doth animate each one : 
The air, the bird, the man. 

Into thy voiceless being from her own ? 

IV 

Yea, where is she who gave thee voice. 
Yet bound thee to her fickle will 
For sweetness of her finger-skill. 
For fondness of her choice ? 
To-day she blows above thee ; 
To-day she will not love thee ; 
To-day thou liest low ; 
O wherefore so ! 
The sun is fair, thy winged friends are up. 
And Spring looks through the door with many a 
flower-cup. 
Yet thou art low ; 
No panted joy or woe 
From forth thy lyric branches for evermore 
must go ! 



TO A FALLEN PINE-TREE 43 



'Twas she, 'twas she, who year-long wooed thee 
chant 

And utter all thy life into her hands ; 
Who flung thy secrets to the canker's haunt. 

And oped thy bracing bands. 

And loosed thy sturdy wands 
With soft, insidious, whispered woman's vaunt ! 

VI 
She threw thee from thy poise : 

The forest stood appalled ; 

No voice of warning called ; 
But, like an ominous noise 

Of waters in the night. 

She caught thee in her might. 
With strange, unlovely voice 

Undoing all thy strings, and age-old minstrel- 
ings. 

And wildwood memories of unuttered things ! 

VII 
O shaggy Pine, no more. 

No more the mimic woe ! 
Who taught thee down the listening night to pour 

Old sagas of the snow. 

She slew thee, laid thee low,^ 
Who was thy love of yore ! ^ 



PARABLE 

T MET a pilgrim in a mountain path 

"*■ And spake, and fared beside him many leagues. 

He said his name was Life, and far away 

In the young morning of the past he rose 

And took a staff and travelled ever since 

To regions of the sky, yet never came. 

I asked who was his father, and he said : 
I know not, but I go to find his house. 



44 



DAY DREAMERIE 

' I ^HE leaves hung round him where he lay 

■*• In dusky close of boughs. 
And birds poured out to the deep-blue day 
Most mellow vows. 

His back was down in the silken grass. 

His thinking brow in his hand. 
He saw the light-foot hours pass 

On sky and land ; 

Yet took no heed, for his whim was out 

With mythic sweets of old ; 
What eyed he of leaf or of blade about 

Was a story told. 

For the oak was war and the elm was love. 

And adieu, fair Oak, she cried. 
And the grass was love and the sky above 

Looked tender-eyed. 

And love was the song of the bird in the brake. 

And love the lay of the brook. 
And yet was love in the cat-bird's ache 

And caw of the rook. 

45 



46 DAY DREAMERIE 

To the door of every house of bark 

A wanton wood-girl stept ; 
And stones gave up from their inner dark 

A love that slept. 

And, when the bended rose blew down, 
'Twas whispered love at her ear ; 

But lo ! himseemed, in a palpitant gown 
Love's self came near ! 

And up the courts of crowded green 
And out the shadowed trees 

She led full many a fabled queen 
From fairy seas. 

And many a phantom king his crown. 
And many a queen her lips. 

Gave up, and went entwined down 
The wood's eclipse. 

For love but touched the odorous air 
And slipped the chain of time. 

And mythic souls that slumbered there 
From golden prime ; 

And they that ambled all the aisles 
And bugled down Romance ; 

These passed him drawn in stately files 
Or fluttered dance. 



DAY DREAMERIE 47 

For his whim was out with sweets of old 

Where love lay like a clue. 
Which found, in order, fold on fold 

The form withdrew. 

And left a beauteous spirit bare 

That took the shape of love. 
And hovered in the sweetened air 

To a shape above. 

Till all the world was a woven web 

And amorous arms, enlocked 
Across the flood of flow and ebb. 

The current mocked. 

And he saw the leaves were the gown of love 

And the sprinkled sun its light ; 
And it lay below, and leapt above 

Was the day, was night. 

For the Summer whispered down the wind 
And taught him, closed in boughs ; 

And birds were wondrous sweet and kind. 
With mellow vows. 




A WINGED ORACLE 

Bird in the mid-bough ! 
Making the wind a lyric, and the leaves. 
Making to listen like a little throng 
Tiptoe about a harper — 
Tell me, O robin of the wood, if thou 
Hast ever dreamed of life, of larger life ? 

Hast ever dreamed of death ? 

If I could sing you in my sober words 
What to be man is, what are human woes. 
What joy the rounded sun brings to the soul. 
That lifts the morning up the eastern hills ; 
What pathos creeps appealing to the heart 
When even bends and courtesies from the west 
If once thy little brain might hold the weight 
Of all we suffer, all we love, and thou. 
Shorn of thy wings, were granted to be man. 
Say, Robin, wouldst thou take the boon ? 
Sing answer from thy cheerful bough. 



A WINGED ORACLE 49 

Sing from thy leafy casement up aloft. 
Amid the household trees ! 

cheerful throat, I hear, I hear thy answer : 
Thy life is sweet, is swooning with the summer ; 
All day to open wing and thrid the shadows ; 
To feel the bending winds about the tree-tops ; 
To mate and nest and sing and rove the hedges ; 

1 hear, I hear : thou fearest and thou fearest 
The life of man, the darker ways untrodden ! 

And yet, my singer, druid of the summer. 
Dweller in leafage, celebrant of dawn 
Thou late and lonely lover of the dusk ! 
O Robin, Robin, even as thou, I stand 
Beside the little way that leads to death ! 
One calls, as I to thee : " Come in, come in ; 
Here's sloping lawn and many a cool retreat. 
Where all the doors sing open to a thought — 
The bolted doors that break the heart. 

That break the heart in life — 
For here the dark is dawn and love is law 
And labor but a day-dream in the shade. 
Come thou to us," so call they from beyond 
" For we were fearful, yet we found it good. 
And thou who coax the Robin, thou who coax 
The Robin to be man, thou shall -be dowered 
With gifts apportioned to thy nobler kind !" 
S 



50 A WINGED ORACLE 

But yet I fear as thou, and cry as thou : 
" O life is very sweet, is very sweet !" 
Nor know how sweeter far 
Is death, is wider death ! 



THE RETURN OF SPRING 

TT^AIREST ! who come with budded coronel 
■■■ And fleecy locks that curl against the cheek ! 
Light murmurer of what our pipes may tell 
Only when gone astray some happy week 
Dreaming of beauty ! Filler of hill and dell 
With slow-uncurling green and flower-heads 

And twig-enwoven beds 
For bird and bee and all the throng that dwell 

Amid the under-grass ! 
Who knows not if thou pass ? 
Who knows not of a warm breath on his face 
Coming nowhither, then a brush of wing, 

And, last, a long embrace 

With thee. Enchantress, Spring ! 

Tuner of brooks, to sing against their stones 
And leap with kisses at the growing sedge. 
Low utterer abroad of sweetest moans 

And sudden sounds that leave a forest edge 
To die along the air like phantom songs. 
Bringing a palpitation in our feet. 
As if, with pressure fleet. 
We folded dryads in a turfed dance. 
To flutes in oaken prongs. 
Blown down the dubious region-of romance ! 

SI 



52 THE RETURN OF SPRING 

May, have I caught thee with a kirtle white 

And willow buds enwoven in thy hem. 
Here in a centre of uncertain light 

That dapples through a maple diadem ? 
Nay, thou art fled, and lo ! beyond the copse 
I see thee courtesy to the chestnut tops 

Wherethrough, like winking eddies lost and seen 
Adown a leafy screen. 
Thou pattest : turning now, in fluttered stops. 

To beckon through the green — 
Yet, if I follow, whispers one : Beware ! 
And silvery laughter swims along the air : 
Beware ! Beware ! 



A WOODLAND INTERVIEW 

/^ OOD-MORROW, Cousin Sycamore ! I'm 

^^ come 

Out of the toiling world to have a talk. 

The winds are troubled in the south to-day 

And boom above you in invisible wrath. 

Bending the jointage of your silver stem 

And all the knotted tresses of your head 

To such obeisance as a vassal king 

In haughtiness should yield a conqueror. 

Beyond, the clouds are beating into port 

Under the winter tree-tops on yon hill ; 

And, as if wishing once were profited. 

The sky, that moon-long yearned for warmer blue. 

Welcomes a courier of awakened spring. 

So for a morrow, but your coiled roots 
Lie blanketed in crusty snow, and drifts. 
Like frozen sunlight in unsunnied nooks. 
Trickle through little knots of juicy grass 
Down to the streams, who gossip of the change. 
But, over-full, are inarticulate. 

And what of wood-life ? You, a-hoary king. 
Who play with tempests and to--beating rains 
5* 53 



54 A WOODLAND INTERVIEW 

Open your breast in careless majesty ; 

Who take the snows like ermine on your limbs. 

And break the very sun to golden robes 

That stream in shaded 'broideries to your feet ; 

Who conquer clouds, and mist, and dreary rain 

By patient beauty, bending all the vv^orld 

To do your service, being motionless. 

You know^ not how we love the steadfast woods. 

Who roar across the world from space to space 

Seeking for rest but finding only riot ; 

You know not of our women, of our men. 

For brother trees to you are brother kings. 

Each ruler of himself, who asks no aid 

And gives none ; doffs his crown if winter come. 

And dons his wreath of leaves if winter go : 

Taking all weathers like a gift of God, 

That, being meant for him, perforce is good. 

You know not, either, of the laddered way 

Where each among us clambers over friends. 

Or thrusts a foot upon the face of kin. 

Or grips a very brother if he leap 

But one unlucky round above our place. 

You stand unhurried by the sound of feet 

That quicken after. Mockeries of love 

That crust ambition with a glozing smile. 

These know you not; nor poisonous rumors slipped 

Into the winds, that grow in bitterness 



A WOODLAND INTERVIEW 55 

As odors grow in sweetness, by diffusion. 
These know you not, but stand, lover of suns. 
And moons, and music of all honest winds 
That greet you year-long in unchangeless faith. 
And grace themselves in beautifying you. 

Nor do you wot of future or of past. 
Your dreams, if you do dream, are sounds of years 
That trode in quiet beauty by your bole 
And flung about your branches, like Misrule 
Who ordered feasts of old, a summer slip 
Woven of textured buds ; or, changing still 
The play, drew on your shoulders, grown a-cold, 
A tawny camlet made of tinted leaves. 
Ungarnered years ; remorseful yesterdays ; 
To-morrows, are not in your calendar. 
To-day, this hour, these are all you know. 
And these have all of hope within themselves. 

No creed, no coiling of the things unseen 

Into a labyrinth of graven law 

Where whoso looks shall wander till the breeze 

Dies, and the merry murmur of the brook 

Ripples in vain, and all the tremulous green 

Is but the funeral harness of a bier ; 

No dogma, guess of seer, prophecy. 

Wakens your mid-wood dream. T-he key of birth. 

That far untrodden future in the-blue. 



56 A WOODLAND INTERVIEW 

And Him who whispers wisdom in the winds 
That, panting, tell us naught, save that He lives : 
These things you question not, but feel, and take 
Their visible signs as beauty's sustenance. 
Gifts of the sun and air by which you grow 
To beauty's stature, being of perfeft growth. 

Few days, good cousin, and the leafy babes 
Will clamber to your arms and make a joy 
Down all the aged roughness of your bark. 
The tilted earth will fill your open veins. 
And some enamoured night will come and put 
A lattice for the sun to glitter through 
Between the naked graces of your bole. 




THREE WEEKS BEFORE SPRING 



FIRST WEEK 



The air is chill, the sky is ashen gray ; 

The grass is dull, with winter in its mind ; 

The woods rise like a fog before the wind 
On rolling hill-tops mile on mile away. 
Here, where the frost trod in the mealy clay. 

His footprint lingers and white thickets bind 

Knots of his murdered leaves ; yet, undefined. 
There's somewhere dancing warmth within the 
day. 



Is it the playful rain at hide-and-seek : 
April prefigured in a chillier shower ? 
Or is the heart a prophet of that hour 
Spring chooses out of one enchanted week ? 
Who knows ? And yet, though 5II the welkin 
lower. 
Shut eyes — and spring will kiss you on the cheek. 

59 



6o THREE WEEKS BEFORE SPRING 



SECOND WEEK 

Where lurked the warmth that breathes upon the 
wood ? 

Where was the tender hand that guides the grass ? 

None answers. Yet to-day they touch, and pass. 
And verdure creeps where yon gray barrier stood. 
The world that shut its door and drew its hood 

Doffs and throws open and lifts up the glass ; 

In at the window steals an even-mass : 
The murmur of a gathering multitude. 

Neither the voice of man, nor that clear throng 
In all the forests of the circled earth. 
Nor all the currents that can utter mirth. 

Could make such unheard music. Words and song 
Follow in vain. It is a wandering birth 

Stolen from the centre where the buds belong. 



THREE WEEKS BEFORE SPRING 6l 



THIRD WEEK 



To-day the doors are open into June. 

A tempered heat steals on us up the blue. 

The whole immaculate earth is made anew. 
And all the aged senses take a swoon. 
Lie down, the long grass pleads : I'm dusty soon. 

This is my dearest day. I grew for you. 

And leaves that glisten still with sappy glue 
Meet the young winds in many an elfin tune. 

O Bacchic Spring ! wine-bringer winged and bare ; 

Treader on tree-tops and the stiiFened blades ; 
Flute-blower, with long skirts of rustling air ; 

Dip deep and fling us beauty ere it fades ! 
Steal round the limbs that rose all winter spare. 

And arch the world in meditative shades ! 



VESPERS 

T7VENING, if any sweetness of the air, 
-*— ^ If any odor of the open buds. 
May be unlocked and loosened, it is thou 
Who touch the wards and turn the key and let 
The swimming fragrance steal between the leaves. 

Thy veiled fingers feel along the east. 
Beckoning the dusk to make a sleep on earth. 
And coaxing down the clouds that keep the sun ; 
Thine eyes amid the shadow of thy locks 
Look out and stream with pity for the tired. 

Then to the west turning, with covered face 
Thou fleest and with faint and far farewells 
Biddest the sun adieu, and, calling up 
Thy Ethiop minions, close the casements in 
That look on level highways of the day. 

And so, thy reign complete, amid the fields. 
On verdure whitened with thy beads of dew. 
Thou liest, and the boughs, stirred by the first 
New wind of night, make music for thy sleep. 
And stars hang timid in the deeps of air. 



62 




MID-DAYS OF JUNE. 

O TENDER, misty, many-hour'd days. 

Mid-days of June ! 
O sloping, scented fields ! O leaf-cool ways 

Of middle June ! 

Take ye my feet, as waves will take a bark 

Drifting it out. 
And idle with me down the shadowy dark. 

With oaks about. 



That stand as cattle where the waters pass. 

Content amid 
The cooling ripples of the long, sweet grass. 

With brown knees hid. 

63 



64 MID-DAYS OF JUNE 

Come ! softly, down the hither-and-thither path. 

The trodden green 
That bickers through the twilit trees and hath 

Of none been seen 

Since morning, when the yeoman swept the dew 

From its small blades. 
Wetting his great hard shoon and trampling through 

The knotted shades. 

Take, take me thither, June, amid thy sweet 

Scents of the vine ; 
Amid the reckless lyrics, deep and fleet. 

Of that divine 

Hermit, who loves the brown cowl of the thrush 

And gives his heart 
Unto his song in one low, aching gush. 

Sets tears astart. 

None other — let us be alone, alone 

With ancient trees. 
Who speak in long, soft, wind-stirred monotone 

The mysteries 

Of being and of ending, of delight. 

And fear, and pain ; 
Who tell of lone star-watches in the night 

And day's disdain ; 



MID-DAYS OF JUNE 65 

Of Storm, and sun, and sapless children boughs. 

And breeze, and blast : 
But out of oaken wisdom utter vows 

Of fealty, last. 

To one mysterious spirit, who the sap 

Sets welling up ; 
Who flings the April leafage in their lap. 

And holds the cup 

Of dew at dawn and even, and with shade. 

Folds in their girth. 
Of implicated leafage softly made 

From their young birth. 

Thither, O June ! And yet I plead no more ; 

For while I woo 
Thy guidance, on the soft, unechoing floor 

My feet fall too ! 

And thou, a misty presence where the sun 

Begins to swell. 
Art kissing with pink fingers, ere thou run, 

A light farewell ! 



6* 



OF A LITTLE BROOK 

TT broods between the grasses, mead by mead, 
"*■ With never a word to tell its sylvan thought ; 

But when the tilting earth its stream has brought 
To the gossip rocks, its tongue is straightway freed. 
Then doth it chatter of the hidden deed 

By mouse and muskrat in the barley wrought ; 

Of that wild music from the redwing caught ; 
Of dimpled feet that waded in the weed. 

Tranquil as quiet musing on the sky 

At twilight is its message from the wood. 

It asks no taunting question, how or why. 
But sings in careless treble what is good ; 

Bears here the scent, the song, the little sigh. 
The gentle music out of solitude. 



66 



SUN IN THE WILLOWS 

' I *HE waning sun through willow lattices 
■*■ Looked down a dewy dingle of the hills ; 
Crossed here a quiet pool with little thrills 
Of radiance 'gainst the eddies when the breeze 
Tranquilly touched them ; sloped away through 
trees 
And sheaved uplands ; touched the windowed 

mills 
To sudden glory ; leapt two swampy rills ; 
And last lay in the green wheat at his ease : 

A lazy, winking journey full of whims. 

With dew to cool his feet, and piftures set 

Each way about him : ah, the sweetest yet. 

Seen from an orchard when the twilight mellows. 

Was nigh a shadowy water where the willows 
Webbed all his golden face with tiny limbs ! 



67 



EVENING IN THE FIELDS 

'TpHE yellowing sun lies west, 

-*■ And level shadow deepens under tree. 
The dusk goes like a parting guest 
Into the arms of night. 
One star undoes its little wick of light. 
And all the land is locked in even-rest. 

Far out upon the southward sky, 

Mark how the darkened turrets of the trees 
Against the twilight lie ; 
How, breathless for a sally of the breeze. 
How, slipping from the sun by soft degrees. 

Into the dusk they die ! 
Sleep takes his way below them, and the glees 
Of feather-throated music pass them by ; 
Yet here, across the mason-wall. 
In the next meadow, rounded full and high. 

The willow clusters fall. 
And dip the current into syllables. 

And keep the fading day anigh 
With light about their lacy pinnacles. 

Sleep takes his drowsy way across the dells. 
In paces measured by the tower-bells, 
68 



EVENING IN THE FIELDS 69 

Hovering awake at some twilighted rise. 
Where a hill-side cottage lies. 

To blink upon its lamp that tells 
Of dear domestic ties : 
Beacon of the homeward eyes. 

Pointing the lover where his duty dwells. 
Pole-star of simple skies ! 

A twilit green the earth is, dewy wet. 

And green is like a breath about the west. 
The air, as if an outer door were set 
Open into the caverns of the snow. 

Hath got a tender zest ; 
And all the little brooks that lazily flow, 
Daytide, are blackened into chilly jet 
And shudder as they go ; 
And all the sonneteers are gone to nest. 

Or settle in a row 
On oaken boughs unmanifest ; 
While only elfin winds in eddies blow. 
Like climbing spirits up the laddered leaves. 
Until great silence heaves 
A billow and the buried day's at rest ' 




AFTER A WEEK OF RAIN 

The rain went out in thunder down the east. 
And all day long the clouds strove with the wind 
For mastery, till the twilight, when the sun 
Sent from his casement in the curving sky 
Long streams of light that breathed upon the clouds 
And touched them crimson, and they barred the air 
Like blown, victorious pennons from a bark 
That conquers on a silent sea of blue. 
The grass, the leaves, the lifted heads of corn. 
And darkened mosses of the bordering wood. 
Glowed with an inner radiance, brittle-crisp 
And saturate with the sweetness of the rain. 



70 



THE CRICKET 

T" TARK. was it one who touched a viol then : 
■^ "^ That low vibration in the darkened grass. 

As one whose dreaming fingers lightly pass 
Over the strings before the prelude, when 
The spirit holds no chord within its ken. 

But idles ere it touch the even-mass ? 

'Twas as if earth had heard the summer pass 
And sighed awake within her sodded den. 

Nay, know you not the cricket whose low flute 
Blows down amid the blades this August night 
'Tis he with gentle treble — he who sings 
That vibrant music, as if soil and root 
Were stricken by some master finger light 
To sweet pulsations like the beat of wings. 



71 



CLOUDS AT SUNDOWN 

/^LOUDS of the summer night 

^"^^ That lie like dreaming warriors on the walls 

Of outpost fortresses. 

And when a whispering breeze, like rumor, runs 

Tiptoe among ye, heave your thick-tressed heads 

And brandish arms 

Across the vales of earth ! 

O clouds of shield and lance 

And sunny armor for the war of winds. 

Why rest ye now asleep. 

For all the world is sweet ? 

O wherefore not, like Goths of mortal men. 

Rise up and slay and scathe the hill-side grain. 

And sweep the valley corn. 

And wrench from out its nook 

The dweller's nest ? 

Why rest asleep ? 

The fair world is to kill ! 



72 



THE PASSING GUST 

nr'HE thunder rolled with long, reverberant 

peals 
From hill to hill across us, and the rain 
Opened its cisterns in the hollow air 
And roared in gurgling cataradls down the land. 
Till, like a stranded hulk, half up the beach 
And half within the eddies, rose the hills 
From forth the circling torrent ; and a fire 
Of twinkled lightning, like a hundred darts 
Aimed blindly, danced about the dazzled night. 
Then, when the storm lay sullen in the south 
And growled but one deep menace ever anon. 
The tree-frogs, heard above the eaves-drop, yelled 
Monotonous answers in the black, wet trees. 
What was the message ? — Nature, taking breath 
After the tumult, heard, and in her heart 
Knew, and was happy : Safe, safe, safe from storm ! 



75 



'nMfU, ' ^^''" 



\\\ 








AUGUST 

Swart Darling of the Sun ! through dell and hill 
Drawn by thy slow-hoofed oxen drowsily 
Till torrid noon, when down with bird and bee 

Thou liest in cool field-corners or at rill. 

Or creaking well, drinkest thy chilly fill ! 
Brown August of the sweaty brow, o'er lea 
And hamlet, wood, and half-awakened sea 

Thy laziness is blown and all is still ! 

So, Yellow-vested ! have I felt thy breath 
Empierce the idle air with molten streams ; 
And bake the crisped wheat, and furrow-seams. 
And dry the milky corn up in its sheath : 
While naked Amazons, arm-laden, went 
With fruits and grains from forth thy harvest 
tent. 
74 



TO A SYCAMORE 

IN OCTOBER 

OIX months ago you were as winter-lean 

^ As on this autumn day that hovers cold 
And points with breezy laughter to the gold 

Spilt from your branches on the under-green. 

I heard a lyric, from a throat unseen. 

Flung to the air that trembled in its hold : 
A throng of gushing notes elate and bold — 

And followed like a phantom through the treen. 

There, in your top, a little feathered tongue 
Swelled with its passion till the bough was bent 
Till half I saw the leaves start out, content 

To think the summer in because it sung. 

And, though the royal season came and went. 

Thy wintry bough is dear to which it clung. 



75 



THE DAY AFTER SUMMER 

'TT^HE tented sheaves are on the hill, 

-*■ The farrow's hid in haze ; 
The wind, it sets the stream achill. 
The ripened wood ablaze. 

A shower rattles down the leaves ; 

The roads are rutted mire. 
A sole belated singer grieves 

Within the blackened brier. 

Far ofF, the curling fagot smoke 

Weaves tree-top into sky. 
And waves of sappy odor soak 

The winds that shiver by. 



76 



WINDS AND LEAVES 

I HAVE walked far to-day with troops of winds 
For company and dead stark summer leaves 
For carpets to our feet. With short reprieves 
Of treacherous silence, such as planning minds 

Must use, the bold air-fellows leapt aside 
And smote the rattling boughs, or, swift of pace. 
Drove skeletons of summer's populace 
To graves unknown and unidentified. 

Once ye were young and trusted these and waved 
A day-long welcome to their flatteries ; 

Yet mark the meed of dalliance — have ye saved 
The sweet green that was whispered of the 
breeze 

A moon before the first warm April day ? 

Or is the memory sweeter for decay ? 



77 



THROUGH FALLEN LEAVES 

OLOW pace and take the autumn hand in hand, 
^^ With reverent tread and ground-averted eyes ; 
Let steal the unspoken woes of this wide land. 
Green yesterday, that unappealing dies. 
Into the chamber mute of tranced reveries. 

Soft, like a matron's fingers that have felt 

The warm tears sprinkle from a silent grief; 

Soft, like a gentle palm, the touch will melt 
Doubt and defiance to a dear belief: 
Anew the bleached grass will blow in April leaf. 

For oak and maple, meadows wide and brown. 
The dusted leaves that lie where late they threw 

A merry shadow to the summer down. 
The chilly reaches of the far-off blue : 
These die and never know of any morrow new ; 

Die down in beauty, beauty till the last 

Stark leaf is lifted from its ruined home. 
Beauty that turns a sweet face to the blast. 

Made bold because of that wide-bending dome. 
Its mother, whence the light that gave it being 
clomb ; 
78 



THROUGH FALLEN LEAVES 79 

These die and know not ; but to us, who tread. 
Mute with the autumn's chill beatitude — 

Down all the gaps, as through a city dead. 

Comes rumor from the mouth of motherhood : 
I build, I overthrow : the evil beareth good. 



ONE WEEPING BY THE WAYSIDE 

\ MELANCHOLY day, a day of clouds. 
•^^- The autumn in her sober habit sat 
By waysides musing, and with murmur like 
The cold reproaches of her hurrying brooks 
Sung a forsaken ditty. As a girl 
Grown up in sorrows to be woman, she 
Bent with her faded face between her knees ; 
And backward, all her shoulders' massive width. 
Her brown locks lay like garner of the year. 
Plaited in sheaves. The neighbor wood threw 

down 
In sympathetic grief its panoply. 
That dropped upon her lightly and there lay 
Rocked by the heavy air ; the thicket bore 
Its withered branches like a broken friend 
Who weeps in reverent woe ; the leaden clouds 
Moved over where she sat and brought their rain 
To mingle with the tattered leaves and tears 
And mourn the green young summer, faded, 

dead. 



80 



A TOUCH OF FROST 

T)UT yesterday the leaves, the tepid rills, 

■'-' The muddy furrows, wore a summer haze ; 
The cattle rested from the yellow rays. 

Bough-cool and careless of the piping bills. 

No breath, no omen of the far-off ills 

Shuddered the air. To-day the hardened ways 
Lie drifted with the dead of summer days ; 

The year lies sheaved upon the autumn hills ! 

There, in the sunburnt stacks the beauty sleeps 
Of beam and shower, dawn, and silver dew. 

Whisper of woody dusk, and upward deeps 
Of moonlight when the air is crystal blue. 

The bending farmer gathers into heaps 

A harvest with the summer woven through. 



8t 



BIRDS OF PASSAGE 

/^ BIRDS of autumn, through the upper light, 
^^ Afar and noiseless, winging from the sun — 

Behold ! the green is fair, the rillets run. 
And sweet are all the odors of the night ! 

O wherefore part ? The summer's ring of leaves 
Hangs rich upon her brow with purpled fruit ; 
The sun is mellow, and a breezy flute 

Trills ever down the wood, for nothing grieves. 

What though the green be yellowed, though the 
loam 
Lie loose in furrows over every hill : 
Yet stay till winter touch the dews achill 

And blust'ry doors shut in the sense of home ! 

Abide ! The world is green, and many a morn 
A sunny lattice sprinkles under-tree ; 
Song is abroad of katydid and bee. 

And woodman echo blows his barken horn ! 

O birds of autumn, heed ! — But nay, they flee 
On steady wing adown the dusks of night. 
Like souls who go before in solemn flight 

To keep us places in eternity. 
82 



OCTOBER 

T> ROWN gleaner of the trees, Oftober, thou 
-*-' Who mellowest through all arbor-bending 

fruits. 
Or, reaching up where apples spring the bough, 

Chillest their ruddy sides ; who at the roots 
Of forest trees will sprinkle plenteous mast. 

And burrs, and beechen nuts, the while on high 
Leaves shiver to the wind, or, falling fast. 

In rutted wood-ways lie. 
Or dam the weedy brook that hurries past ! 

But now thou tarried here with sunburnt arm. 
Binding a sheaf ere yet the wains were up ; 

Or here, in swarthy reach, to bosom warm 
Didst gather sweets of every flower-cup : 

Simples and rugged blooms, the latest born 
That zone the year — till, in a furrow-seam. 

At yellow noon, thou rested, harvest-worn. 
The while thy loosened team 

Chewed at its meal amid the sickled corn. 

Anon thou turnest homeward, all thy troop 

Grown large on hill-tops 'gainst the flaming sun ; 

83 



84 OCTOBER 

And now, through granary door, with shout and 
whoop, 
Drivest thy steaming yoke — yet art not done. 
For chilly lambs stand bleating at the fold. 

And lanterns twinkle down the dairy-ways. 
And pails ring loud, while over odorous mould 

Upfumes the thicket blaze. 
And in the dark one star is trembling cold ! 

Who would not love thee, though the summer birds 
Fly frighted of thy voice through tattered boughs. 

Knowing not summer in thy blust'ry words. 
Nor in the curled fillet on thy brows ! 

Who would not love thy sober matron mood. 
Pacing ofttimes alone through brittle leaves 

And naked arches of the dying wood ; 
Or listening under eaves. 

With saddest eyes for young May's vanished brood! 




NOVEMBER SNOW-FALL 



While yet the moon shone in the clouds, there fell 
A winter's shower of snow. Unseen, unheard 
It smote, like some cold wing of winter bird. 
My sky-turned face, and went invisible 
To join the ghostly leaves about my feet. 
Tree-branches like the hand of a sickened maid 
O'errun with veins, stood printed bough and blade 
Stark on the sky ; the while, with halloo fleet. 
The wind made trumpets of the tufted pines. 
8 85 



86 NOVEMBER SNOW-FALL 

The river framed this pifture. Still and gray 
As metal cooled in a wide crucible. 
Bending about the blackened hills it lay. 
Wan as the clouds. So earth's unuttered signs 
Speak more than human lips can ever tell ! 



WINTER SUNSET 

'T'HIS copse is like an oriel looking west, 
■*■ With tiny panes of tintedheraldries : 
For through the black entanglement of trees 

The sun is gloaming into golden rest. 

A chill is on the quiet river's breast. 

And all the sable branches seem to freeze. 
Yet nothing murmurs in the stiffened breeze 

Save bunches of the furry cedar's vest. 

One star is in the air, Hesper, that seems 
Blown like an ember from the ashen night. 

The gathered tumult of the winds and streams 
Bellows to hillward, and a tender light. 

As if day's aureoled head lay there in dreams. 
Hovers through outer woodlands, spirit-white. 



87 







r i^itK^^Tuij-et fruit' 



WINTER 

Tide of the whited fields, and frosty air. 

And winds that bluster out the blackened limbs ; 

Of paven brooks that sing a cold despair. 
And hanging ice about the casement rims ; 

Of drifted mows well buried in the meads. 
And foddered cattle feeding at the racks ; 

Of doubled noises, when the yeoman speeds 
From house to barn, with ever-deepening tracks 
Left in the snow — or when the steady axe 

Splits oaken comfort for the ingle needs ! 



Thy bitter morning nips the drowsy wight 
Who tumbles all awry from blanket fold. 



89 



Aching for yet an hour of warm delight. 
Yet duty-driven to the shivery cold. 

Anon, his cloudy breath out-blown before. 
He sledges forestward with jingling bells. 

Or rounds the muffled mill or village store. 
Or blithely rattles to the neighbor dells 
For in-door gossip of the frozen wells 

Or many a nodding tale of weather-lore. 



And when thy night puts forth the flinty stars. 
Cold and far-ofi\, or when the shrouding 
storm 

Deadens the echoes, then at ruddy bars. 
Or deep in cavernous chimney overwarm. 

The clustered neighbors make the game go 
round 
With seasoned cider or with russet fruit. 

Or footed dances to the fiddle sound — 
What time the harvest lover wins his suit 
Below the boughs where bony owlets hoot. 

When homeward wheels awake the ringing ground. 

Beauty there is in thy deep-wrinkled face. 
And in thy furry hand is fellowship ! 

What though no h edgy-green entrellised place 
Leads to thy latch, there's bubbled drink asip 
8* 



go WINTER. 

Where thou mak'st merry o'er the mossy log. 
And open pages underneath thy lamp 

That startle fairy ringlets on the rug. 

Or wander down the silken-tented camp 
Of dim romance ; and when the north winds 
tramp 

There's wreathed revery in thy steaming mug ! 




NAKED BOUGHS 

There were troths in the hedges 

And bird-mates were true ; 
There were trysts, there were pledges. 

And old loves, and new ; 
There was sun at the tree's heart, 

And song in the boughs. 
And spring in the bee's heart. 

And whispers and vows : 
There were leaves, when we mated. 

And now — naked boughs. 

Ah, vows that were fated ! 

Ah, loves that would house ! 
Your time was belated. 

Your fate — naked boughs ! 



93 



YOU AND I 

TF you were like the daybreak, 
■'■ And I were young as you. 
And it were early May-break, 

And buds were pushing through ; 

If skies were only blue. 

And we were met anew. 
How sweet, how sweet the : Yea, take 

My heart and prove it true ! 

How wide the world would seem then. 

How green the grass would be. 
How we should dream and dream, then. 

Beneath the budding tree. 

If I could pipe a glee : 

Come, marry, marry me. 
And you could bend and beam, then, 

A Benedicite ! 

But, ah, for toil and twilight. 

And you a silvery age ; 
And I, with sob and sigh light 

For Time's long-taken wage ; 

And love a blotted page. 

And life a pilgrimage, 
94 



YOU AND I 95 

Where leaves that budded, die white 
Across the acreage ! 

Alack, 'tis autumn weather ! 

The chimney bears no bud ; 
A chill is on the heather ; 

A mist is on the flood — 

And yet, from crackled wood. 

It sings along the blood 
That you and I together 

Have loved and understood ! 



WOODFELLOWS 

T KNEW not when I heard the wind 
■*■ Among the forest trees. 
That in my heart it left behind 
Its transient melodies. 

It came above me in the night 

And met me in the noon ; 
Or bowed, and bent the candle-light. 

With one majestic tune. 

It was the fellow of my moods 
That spoke and leapt away. 

And I could hear it roods on roods 
Preparing words to say. 

And yet methought when I had left 

The arches of the trees. 
The wind remained; I was bereft 

Of all its ministries. 

But no, for when the branches blow 
About my neighbored eaves. 

The wind and I together go 
Under the forest leaves. 
96 



FAIRY GOLD 

XX/HEN the bubble moon is young 

Down the sources of the breeze. 
Like a yellow lantern hung 

In the tops of blackened trees. 
There is promise she will grow 
Into beauty unforetold. 
Into all unthought-of gold. 

Heigh ho ! 

When the spring has dipped her foot. 

Like a bather, in the air. 
And the ripples warm the root 

Till the little flowers dare. 
There is promise she will grow 
Sweeter than the springs of old. 
Fairer than was ever told. 

Heigh ho ! 

But the moon of middle night 

Risen, is the rounded moon ; 
And the spring of budding light 

Eddies into just a June. 
Ah, the promise — was it so ? 
Nay, the gift was fairy gold ; 
All the new is over-old. 

Heigh ho ! 
9 97 




SUCCORY 

I PLUCKED a little bud of blue 
That nodded by the way : 

The cradle of a drop of dew. 
The darling of the day. 



I pinned the treasure at my throat. 
So might I bear to town 

Some token of the thrush's note. 
The lane the leaves go down. 



99 



And why — I set it in a cup 
And blessed it with the sun — 

Why were the petals folded up. 
Where was the azure run ? 

Ah me ! What was the difference. Heart ? 

What magic made thee beat ? 
The self-same sun is on the mart. 

The breeze is in the street ! 



CLEARING OFF 

/^LOUDS, and the wind a-chill, 
^^ And the road of sodden clay. 
And a mist on the dripping hill. 
And a mask on the day. 

And the noon was like the pain 
When cheer is cold on the hearth. 

And the noises, dulled by the rain. 
Hung low to the earth. 

But now, as if one came out 

From the western seas and waved 

Onset, with gesture and shout. 
Till his fleet was saved : 

So came a wind from the sun 
And broke the hurrying rack. 

And the blessed light was won. 
And the blue came back. 

And the rainless clouds in the west 
Lay white like the griefs we love ; 

And soft as a sorrow at rest 
Was the blue above. 



TO A CHRYSANTHEMUM 

"1 T 7HEN autumn plucks the yellowed leaves, 

^ And blows the branches bare ; 
You, mocking at the faded sheaves. 
You take the bitter air. 

You toss the driving North a nod 

That roars within the flue. 
And greet the morning with a bud 

That shuts the aster to. 

And I who hug the ruddy coal 

Make you my token, for — 
We find the sweet in autumn's soul 

On either side my door. 



THE WINTER WIND 

XT 7IND, tell me, do you blow to-night 

' * With nothing in your heart of spring ? 
Is there no morrow's creeping light 

Can bring you where the mornings sing ? 

Down all the roughened slopes of earth. 
Is there no meadow free of snow. 

Where you may find the seed in birth 
And find a solace meet for woe ? 

No memory, no hope ? Ah me. 
If mine were such a wintry heart, 

I'd ask no guerdon but to be 

A blast above the blackened mart. 



SADIE 

QADIE, as I sat by you 

^ Where the green ringed round the blue, 

Ringed it as the osiers do 

At a pool ; 
There within your gentle eyes 
Came the glow of sunny skies. 
Came the beat of butterflies 

Winging cool. 



How was it a little girl. 

Just with here and there a curl 

Peeping in a playful whirl 

From her hood : 
How is it she brought me there 
People from the pleasant air. 
Ladies from their barken lair 

In the wood ? 



This it is : you give me back, 
Sadie, what I 'gin to lack : 
Childhood, and the fairy nack 

Of weaving spells ; 

103 



104. 



Touch me with the wand of youth. 
Open avenues of truth. 
Catch the rapture out of ruth. 
Where it dwells. 



THE EARTHWORM 

I 
'T*HIS noble worm hath relish good 

■*- Of many a dainty meal. 
He fills his paunch of rare fat food 

Ere the matin chime shall peal. 
The whole night through he fattens well 

On portly goodmen's chaps. 
With now a lip of a lady-belle 
To sweeten his daytime naps. 

Then let us eat 
All rare good meat 
To sweeten his daytime naps. 

II 

Through sod and soil he worketh low. 

And under the cold, cold stone : 
For a merry soul he hath, I trow. 

When the wind it maketh moan. 
A merry soul and a paunch well fed : 

Nor man nor worm need more ; 
But year-long though he dieted. 

Yet his banquet would run o'er. 

Then let us eat 
All rare good meat 
Though his banquet should run o'er. 



STORM 

' I ^HE winds are up ! the winds are up, 

"*■ With clouds and tree-tops in their arms. 
With blowing wheat about their feet. 
And in their throats a hundred harms ! 

An upland's stormed, and riven wheat 
Lies conquered in its loamy nest : 

The winds laugh on o'er lake and lawn 
To bastion clouds about the west. 



io6 



DOUZABELLE 

A LITTLE ring of curling cloud. 
And in the midst a star ; 
So, Douzabelle, around about 
Thy soul, thy graces are. 

Thou floatest in the blue of love, 

A little curling cloud. 
With now the sun upon thee, and 

Now by a tempest bowed ; 

See how the breezes blow thee by. 

And how thy shadow falls : 
And instant dusking at a rose. 

Then over meadow walls ; 

And down the path that bounds the brook. 

And through a clover-close. 
And by the hay-stack on the hill. 

Where windy barley blows — 

And then to me ! O Lord of Day 

Slant not at Douzabelle, 
Else she must cast a shadow where 

No shadow ever fell ! 

107 



A PINE-TREE BUOY 

AT NANTUCKET 

"IT THERE all the winds were tranquil, 

' ' And all the odors sweet. 
And rings of tumbling upland 
Sloped down to kiss your feet : 

There, in a nest of verdure. 
You grew from bud to bough ; 

You heard the song at mid-day. 
At eve the plighted vow. 

But fate that gives a guerdon 

Takes back a double fee : 
She hewed you from your homestead 

And set you in the sea. 

And every bowling billow 

Bends down your barren head 

To hearken if the whisper 
Of what you knew is dead. 



io8 



FICKLE HOPE 

TTOPE, is this thy hand 

■*■ ■*■ Lies warm as life in mine ? 

Is this thy sign 
Of peace none understand ? 

What ! art thou now steadfast ? 

From off the blue air's beach 

Wilt lean and reach 
The price of pity past ? 

I know not if I may 

Believe thee, Hope, or doubt : 

With pretty pout 
Wilt flee, or wilt thou stay ? 



109 




A PRIMER 



I HAVE a little book with rumpled leaves 

That riddles me of life : 
How evening dew comes dripping on the eaves. 

How sun takes shade to wife. 

It reads the robin out of middle-wood. 

And odor from the dells. 
Where kindly boughs rear up a tender brood 

Of timid flower-bells. 

And where its pages flutter not apart 

I pry, and learn the lore. 
How drooping age may keep a happy heart 

If youth be at the core. 

My book, you see, is just the curling rose. 

Plucked long, and overblown. 
Look well : it bears a message unto those 

Who take it for their own. 



THE HERMIT THRUSH 

■1 T 700D Robin, in the inner wood, 
^ * Unseen amid thy house of boughs. 
What of the mood of mellow vows ? 
What of the answer, drear of mood ? 

I hear thee not aright, but yet 

Some bond that runs through man and bird 

Brings echo of a fated word : 
A sorrow I may not forget. 

What was thy hurt ? Yet half I know 
In tears that touch the lids apart ; 
In hopeless hurry of the heart ; 

In springs of grief that overflow. 

But thou — again the moving song. 
Half lyric, half a limpid woe — 
If thou can sweeten sorrow so. 

Should I to mourning all belong ? 

Nay, 'tis the lore of wiser air : 
The saddest is the sweetest still. 
If woe be tempered by the will, 

Joy, like an inner voice, is there. 



THE HEDGE 

T TOW low the hedges lie between 
■*• -*■ My fields and me ! 
And yet, and yet what leagues of lean 
Land baffle me ! 

I cannot touch my darling leaves ; 

I cannot reach 
The tendrils of the trailing eaves 

That half like speech 

Make motion toward me when I yearn 

Across the grass. 
Alas, alas, that I should turn 

And toil and pass. 

Nor ever set my aching pace 

Within the close 
Where lie the lords of royal race 

In dear repose. 

Whom this world soils not, nor assails. 

Nor makes afraid ; 
Who teach us song and verdurous tales. 

And still are paid 



THE HEDGE I 13 

By joy of beauty, joy of art. 

And life, and song ; 
Who lay light fingers on the heart 

To ease the wrong. 

Alas, alas, that one low hedge 

Should stand between 
The sweet, secluded privilege 

Of life unseen. 

Lying the grass along, of peace 

And idle thought. 
And this loud chaos of increase 

And greed of naught. 



MOTHER OF THE YEARS 

^T 7HAT of thy sorrows, mother ! Are not 
' ~ these 

Fruition of thy reign : 
Thy lusty garners, heaped about thy knees. 

Of corn and russet grain ; 
Thy fatted flocks at nibble in the leas ; 

Thy creaking harvest wain ? 
What of thy sorrows which the blowing trees 

Interpret into pain ? 

What memory hovers in thy matron eyes 

And touches out the tears ? 
What thought of music in the warmed skies. 

And hope of sweet, young years. 
That grew to youth in leafy panoplies. 

And laughed at later fears ; 
Then withered in the valleys, echo-wise. 

And slept on autumn biers ? 

I hear thy sorrow, mother. In the breeze 

It sings an under-psalm ; 
Deep-toned, it murmurs in the melodies 

That bubble by the dam ; 
114 



MOTHER OF THE YEARS II5 

And far it comes, like query of the seas 

Across a forest-calm : 
Yet down the midnight of thy mysteries 

Peace beckons with her palm ! 



WHAT DIFFERENCE? 

\X 7HAT difference, whether with the stars, 
^ * The rounded earth, the hollow night, 
I be made one, or over bars 

Of bone and usage see the light ? 

What difference if the lily be 

The lip of man, the rose his heart ; 

Were it not better scent the lea 
Than chaffer at the glozing mart ? 

Were it not better speak in winds 

The language that is wisdom's tongue. 

Than hold debate with dubious minds 
And chatter what the chained have sung ? 

Yea ! there is gospel in the pine 
And science on the sloping beach. 

The sunset scripture is divine. 

The girdled sheaves have law to teach ! 



ii6 



READING SARTOR RESARTUS 

TV >TY sail is up, my bark floats out 
■*-^*- The dawn before, the night behind ; 
My mast is true, my sail is stout — 
But I am blind ! 

O winds of love ! O winds of will ! 

And toppling, troubled winds of hope ! 
Bear out my bark through stormy ill 
To truth's calm slope ! 

But hasten ere the dawn be fled 

.Through backward curtains of the night! 
Blow, blow me, ere the day be dead. 
Where faith is sight ! 



117 



THE ALMSMAN 

T^EATH, what wilt thou? — go thy way- 
^^^ Take thy white bones hence ! 
Hearken ! I have naught to pay 
Save of copper pence. 



Keep thy coin, I crave it not ! 

Feed me of thy heart. 
Is it dear to thee ? God wot. 

Death must have a part ! 

Give me life or else I die. 

Look you. Death must dine ! 
Sap and blood were year-long dry. 

An they fed not mine ! 



ii8 



LEAFLESS 

'T^HE green came in ; her soul went out : 

-*- She was most like a tree that stands 
Naked, when Ibliage creeps about 
The sun-touched lands. 

As some fair, sheltering tree she was 
That spread its liberal boughs abroad 

For wayfarer and kin, with close 
Of peace about its sod. 

But with the summer rose no sap. 

No shade of wonted leafiness ; 
Amid her kin o'er summer's lap 

She loosed no tress. 

Yet who forgets, though her boughs be bare. 
The genial welcome of her shade. 

'Twas free for many a year on year. 
To none gainsaid. 



119 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTMAS 

A COLD it is and middle night : 
"^^^ The moon looks down the snow. 
As if an angel, clad in white. 

Carried her lanthorn so 
That, going forth the streets of light. 

She made an earthward glow. 



A drift enfolds the chapel eaves 

Like a downy coverlet ; 
And, garnered into whited sheaves. 

The graves are harvest-set 
Waiting the yeoman. All the panes 

Are rich with rimy fret. 

The sexton mounts the outer stair 
Where chilly sparrows cower. 

And bells ring down the winter air 
From forth the snowy tower ; 

For, muffled deep in drift, the clock 
Hath struck the Christmas hour. 

And over barn and buried stack. 

And out the naked copse, 
1 20 



THE DAWN OF CHRISTMAS I 

And where the owl sits plump and black 

Amid the chestnut tops. 
The branches echo back the bells 

Like dulcet organ-stops. 

For blast of wind and creak of bough 

And rustle of the frost. 
And winter's inner voice, avow 

The holy hour is crossed ; 
And far mysterious music sounds. 

Sweet, like a harping host. 




GOOD-NIGHT 

Good-night, good-night, the day is done ; 
Rock, rock the cradle, little one ; 
The lamp is low, and low the sun. 
Good-night. 

Good-night, good-night ; the Christmas bough 
Bends to the rocking wind, and thou 
To mother's ditty noddest now. 

Good-night. 

Good-night, good-night ; the holy day 
Bring baby sweets and sweets alway. 
Rock, rock — then tiptoe steal away. 
Good-night. 




LOVE'S REVENGE 



In Padua city, ages gray ago. 

Two brothers lived in tender fellow-love. 
Who felt the amorous winds about them blow. 

Yet laughed together, ache of heart above ; 
Who heard no bruit of court or chase or war. 
But only loved each other evermore. 

II* 125 



126 love's revenge 



II 



No lady-laugh might cozen them apart ; 

Or, so they vovv^ed anevir each opening day. 
No quest of fortune or forgetful art 

Might woo their allied souls another way. 
No eyes they had for sweets of womankind. 
But all of love could in each other find. 

Ill 

Each thought was on their lips an uttered word ; 

Each look was but a new love-testament ; 
And laughter built between them, like a bird 

Who chooses brother boughs together bent ; 
And songs at morning from their windows fell. 
And songs at night to bid the day farewell. 

IV 

Of mien they were to steal a lady's eyes. 

Well mantled and in costly sea-brought stuffs ; 

And as a prince's were their heraldries ; 

And princely were their parks and palace roofs ; 

Yet were they nothing nobler, save in thought. 

Than myriad ladies for their wooing brought. 



But from each suit these brothers turned away 
And sang unto each other merrily. 



LOVES REVENGE 1 27 

No touch of palm, no turn of eye astray. 

No blush, no falter made them sadder be.. 
What though a lady were a lily fair ? 
Yet neither had one throb of heart to spare. 

VI 

Their palace walls were high with battlements. 
Where shady vines crept tim'rously aloft. 

Their gardens sloped away, with shades and scents 
And pillared bowers, toward the distance soft. 

Their palace windows looked adown the trees 

And saw the vines asleep in sunny ease. 

VII 

And most it was their pleasure, linked at arm. 
To pace the cloisters in familiar talk ; 

Or lean away into the languor charm 

Of soft siroccos, pausing from their walk ; 

Or they would take some sweetest instrument 

And touch a song to make the soul content. 

VIII 

Or, hushed in blazoned arras, would they pore — 
Twin-seated at some leftern, bossed below 

With hooded saints that knelt upon the floor — 
On sonnets singing love an age ago. 

Or tale of knight who rode beneath the rood. 

Or old enchanter in the deep greenwood. 



128 love's revenge 



IX 



Or seemed them sweet at noon, where branches 
met. 

To rest in midway of a balcony ; 
Of whitest marble was it, rimmed with fret 

Of lilies, and o'ershadowed duskily 
With cedarn branches and with large plane leaves. 
And like an arch sloped down the palace eaves. 



Beyond, they cast no look, but loved to lie 

With dreaming heads drawn back among the 
shades. 

Listening with parted lip and light-shut eye 
To laughter blown from neighbor colonnades. 

Where ladies idled all the mid-day out 

With amorous music and with mellow shout. 



XI 

So sweet was life they all forgot the days. 
And crowding months ran into mistier years. 

Youth, like a bud dropped open in its plays. 
Spread on to manhood — yet no weightier tears 

Than come at ending of a gentle tale 

Had wet their lids or left their warm cheeks pale. 



love's revenge 129 

XII 

And so these brothers in the softened breeze. 

Below the velvet cedar clusters lay 
One mid-day w^hen the wind slipped melodies 

Through garden arches, caught from every way 
Where vintagers murmured as the hot juice run. 
Or where grape-loaded girls sang in the sun. 

XIII 

So faint the pleasant noise was they had slept 
And dreamed a dream of vine-run Paradise — 

" But hearken, Lippo, hearken !" — one hath crept 
Close to his brother, where he shadily lies — 

" Hearken how sweet ! A daytime nightingale ! 

Well, well-a-day, who sings so tryst a tale ?" 

XIV 

*' Ah, brother mine, 'tis but a sorry wife 
Trilling a household ditty to her mate. 

Rest, Cosimo, 'tis they who question life 
Who weep. Fellow, be ours another fate 

Than bondage to a fickle lady's face. 

Hush out the burden with a sonnet's grace !" 

XV 

But Cosimo spake nothing ; all his thought 

Went down the alleys where the song was sung. 



130 LOVES REVENGE 

Anon he drew^ the silks, high overcaught 

Betw^ixt the outward pillars, and there among 
Thick leaves, lay ambushed from the garden maze 
That stretched beneath in winding, odorous ways. 

XVI 

Yet, as the voice drew near, Filippo stirred. 
And, rising, bent across his brother's arm : 

So mocked the song, yet, ever musing, heard 
Like one within the circle of a charm. 

Laughing, he cried, ** Beware," then turned and lay 

With listening ear, yet feigned to doze away. 

XVII 

But, rounding arm about a column's base, 
Cosimo hung amid the blowing boughs 

And ever watched for one with rhymed pace 
Unto the singing. Old-remembered vows 

Of errantry came tempting to his tongue. 

So like it was a song in faery sung. 

XVIII 

Full long it wandered with the wandering ways. 
Clear through the trunks or hushed in thicket- 
green ; 

And now a white gown with the leafage plays 
Where sylvan marbles nigh a fountain lean ; 



LOVES REVENGE I3I 

And now a lady, pale as beauty dead. 

Came weeping down the grass with witched tread. 

XIX 

Most pale she was, yet beautiful and white 

As is a lily fostered in a shade. 
And beauty round about her made a light 

So pure, it seemed Love's self had been afraid 
To touch so fair a thing with any blush ; 
And maidenhood was near her like a hush. 

XX 

And now, a little space, she rested well 
Against a wood-god's image on the green. 

An open spot it was that topped a dell. 

With circled bowers of the wide-branched treen. 

Full white against the leaves she stood and sung 

Within his view who hid the boughs among. 

XXI 

He was alert, and gazed with curious eye 
For wonder of so fair a lady's tears. 

It pained him through to hear her melody ; 
Almost he yearned to soothe away her fears. 

What was her wrong ? Her name how could he 
know ? 

He ached to speak some solace for her woe. 



132 LOVES REVENGE 



XXII 



So through the stirring curtains turned about 
And drew Filippo thither hushedly. 

Who came reluftant, whispering envious doubt. 
Yet came with secret hope to hear and see. 

" Ah, brother mine !" he said — yet gazed amain — 

" Unmeet it is to hear such amorous pain." 

XXIII 

In truth, their human hearts were stricken sore : 
They could not idly hear a lady moan ; 

They could not call her through their portal door ; 
They must not let a mortal grieve alone. 

And now, like wood-birds winging oceanward. 

They hurry down the stair in close accord. 

XXIV 

So through the grove and garden spaces went. 
And passed beyond the gates to where she was. 

Still singing forth her woe, and downward bent. 
With loosened hair that dallied in the grass. 

They could have touched the broidery on her gown. 

She sung entranced with weeping eyes bent down. 

XXV 

And sun-warm airs would ripple in the sod 
And touch aflutter many a flower-head. 



LOVES REVENGE I 33 

And set the brothers' bending plumes anod. 
And rock their shadows, when the boughs were 
spread 
With lazy motion on the chequered ground 
Where threaded darkness through them inter- 
wound. 

XXVI 

And when her song ceased, at the burden's end. 
All ere she plained anew, this lady's eyes 

Saw at her feet the shadows bow and bend. 

And glanced athwart her with a swift surprise ; 

Then up she looked with tear-wet lids apart 

And startled hand above her beating heart. 

XXVII 

Some minutes' space she faltered in alarm. 

With side-turned eyes and feet that would have 
fled; 

Then rose and stood before them sweet and warm. 
In folded gown that sloped adown and spread 

From off her shoulders straightway to her feet. 

With many an airy bend and silken pleat. 

XXVIII 

From weeping overmuch her lips were pale. 
Yet tender color trembled at her throat. 



134 LOVES REVENGE 

And 'gainst the texture of her raiment, frail 
Soft movings of her bosom lightly smote. 
And warm alarms went up her pallid brow. 
And in her cheeks a rose would come and go. 

XXIX 
Ah, Lippo, let thy heart no faster beat ! 

Turn, turn thy face away, young Cosimo ! 
For arrowy Love, that laughs when men repeat 

Man-troths and brother-vows, hath ready bow. 
Go back, nor tempt this lady's weeping eyes ! 
Go back to tranquil loves and fellow-ties ! 

XXX 

Alas, when pity's mate is loveliness ! 

For men must ever run at pity's moan ; 
And sweet it is to smooth away distress. 

But liker love if beauty crave a boon ! 
And so these brothers took no moment's thought. 
But spake soft words with courtly solace fraught. 

XXXI 

Thereto, with tearful syllables and eyes 

Untaken from the ground, she told her tale. 

And seeds of love went scattered with her sighs 
Like atom-seeds, wind-planted in a dale. 

That lie the winter long like dust or snow. 

But ache with life when April trumpets blow. 



love's revenge 135 

XXXII 

Full sad it was with many a woe and wrong ; 

Yet none of love's woes did she plain upon : 
For ever had she dwelt old age among. 

That, frighted for its hoard, shut out the sun 
And clinked its coinage in dim candle-light 
With ravenous hand and sudden-lifted sight. 

XXXIII 

No laugh might ever ripple at her lips. 

Nor dance a blush across her prisoned cheek. 

And morning's light and noon's were at eclipse. 
For scarce she saw the sun from week to week. 

Nor knew the pleasure of the soft, green leaves. 

Nor winds, nor clouds, nor birds about the eaves. 

XXXIV 

With barred iron was her casement dark. 

And never might she see the peopled streets ; 

Day-long to stony echoes must she hark. 
Or listen what weak, crooked age repeats 

Of miser wisdom or of crabbed rage. 

Or turn all day the gloomy ledger page. 

XXXV 

So, vaulted from the sun, with year-long dust 
And ponderous coffers for her company. 



136 love's revenge 

She dwelt, till life had quitted beauty's crust — 

But succor came anon w^ith w^itched key : 
One mid-day, as he fingered at his wealth. 
Death fetched the miser's soul away by stealth. 

XXXVI 
And so this lady, paying grace to death. 

Fled out and felt the fulness of the sun. 
And quaifed the blue-skied day with hurried breath. 

And wantoned in the grass for freedom won. 
Or touched the tallest flowers with her lips 
Like meagre bee at early crocus tips. 

XXXVII 
" O joy !" she sung, " I will live like a flower : 

With wind and sun forever in my face. 
Catch in my tresses dews, and build my bower 

Of leaning grass under a shady place ! 
O joy ! to feel the sky so far away 
And feel the wind about my temples play ! 

XXXVIII 
" O joy ! O joy !" she sung as loud as lark. 

And lightly vaulted with a winged pace. 
And pressed, like one whose virginhood could mark 

Dumb fellowships, her breast to each green place. 
As if to feel a tender beating back. 
Or drain the earth of what her heart would lack. 



LOVES REVENGE I37 

XXXIX 

But earth, nor bosomed tree, nor full-drawn breath 
Can medicine her heart of w^hat it ails. 

E'en though the merry morning breeze bloweth. 
From out her cheek the budded color fails. 

And though the leaves stir high with winged song. 

Yet human loves must at her bosom throng. 

XL 

These mused she on of old in money-cell. 

Or dreamed when sleep unlocked her weary feet ; 

And now she parteth toward the towered bell 
That tolleth prayer o'er Padua's sunny street. 

No soul she knew, yet felt it sooth to be 

Where other eyes might own her company. 

XLI 

*' Then hither to this shade — I know not where !" 
And at these words she ceased with 'wildered 
look. 

And lifted hand across her fallen hair 

That in the wind about her shoulders shook. 

Like one with widened eyes that seemeth blind 

She stood in dread forlorn and undivined. 

XLII 
But, Love ! what witchery is in bitter tears 
That made these brothers' pity eloquent ! 



138 love's revenge 

But, Love ! w^hat witchery is in soothed fears 

To flood the tongue with soft admonishment ! 
As when a shower ends in sudden birds. 
So spake these brothers witless honey-words. 

XLIII 

So spake and, as they murmured, moved away. 
And thoughtless trod that lady them between. 

Hearkening, on either hand, to tender play 
Of alternated voices. Through the green 

They passed of soft, forgetful garden ways. 

With sober mirth and heart-appeasing praise. 

XLIV 

And at the gates she would have said adieu. 
Yet hovered half away in timid mood ; 

Then, like a cloud the winds shape ever new. 
In maiden whim went with them down the wood ; 

For thither dwelt a nun in shade of trees 

Whose voice was sweet with hospitalities. 

XLV 

And there these brothers, 'tranced by magic tears. 
Made kisses on her hand would grace a knight ; 

And dallied with adieus and virgin fears. 
As if were dead all brotherly delight ; 

And ever anon, far parted from the cell. 

Would turn anew and wave a last farewell. 



LOVES REVENGE 1 39 

XLVI 

So through the trees and sloping vineyard ways. 
Even to the midmost balcony, they passed. 

Still syllabling in twenty tender plays 

About that lady's graces. How : harassed 

Yet patient was she ; how, O cozening love ! 

'Twere cruelty to deny a storm-blown dove. 

XLVII 

And shame, they said, and heartless were it all 
To leave her lovely head so shelterless — 

But sure they wrought no fancy sweet or gall 
Could hide the heartache love must not confess. 

Such words they used as when hoodwinking song 

Goes by the nest with danger-sweetened tongue. 

XLVIII 

But silence fell between them, well-a-day ! 

Their tuned minds went musing all anon. 
And there they eyed each other where they lay. 

Cool in the cedar shade ; from habit won 
Of slow foot-pacing in the vaulted aisles. 
By thwarting memories of that lady's smiles. 

XLIX 

Perchance the sunset in the western pines ; 
Or punftual nightingale, their visitor ; 



140 LOVE S REVENGE 

Or oft-heard sound or song ; or star that shines 
Duskw^ard ; or the hour itself, hath opened 
door 
Into their souls' recess and bade them see 
Old fellowships that bid adieu and flee. 



For, musing-w^ise, Cosimo picked the strings 
Of some convenient lute with minute-notes : 

Thought-unisons that checked the fluttered wings 
Of thought ; and then there upward floats 

An old-known song, and both together press 

With clinging arms and manly tenderness. 

LI 

So two long days they spoke not of her — yet. , 
Each privily would scan the garden-slopes. 

At inward anger that his thought must get 

Cobwebbed in vaguest dreams and dreaded hopes. 

Or frighted of a footfall in the trees — 

Yet at the sound throb up with ecstasies. 

LII 

And if they eyed each other they would flee 
Into a strong embrace, yet speak no word. 

Or if they spake, 'twere tricksome raillery 
Of pet or servant or of singing bird. 



LOVE S REVENGE I4I 

And the third day she came below their seat. 
And love's wings seemed bound upon their feet. 

LIII 

Day-long they loitered in the poppied vines. 
And so for many days — but yet at eve. 

Like late-come rovers from the sea's confines. 
These brothers caught a fearful love-reprieve. 

They could not leave her, yet each night anew 

Must prove each other's heart if it be true. 

LIV 

They could not leave her, though the sweets of old. 
The idle music and the mated song 

And soft, one-thoughted musings writ and told. 
Went out like morning buds. They had no 
tongue 

For brother-troths, and at each closed day. 

Like wandering stars, were farther gone away. 

LV 

With parted step they took another path ; 

With severed lips they tuned a mournfuller air ; 
They chose divergent roads, such rule love hath ; 

They stole about the trees in sharp despair ; 
Nor met ; but if that lady thither hied. 
They hurried to her, one on either side. 



142 LOVE S REVENGE 

LVI 

Full moon it vs^as, and now the moon was sped : 
They grew asunder ever, evermore. 

Yet might not meet, but old-love thither fled 
Like oft-forbidden guest that haunts the door. 

They might not meet but old-love filled their eyes. 

Their dreams at night were woven of old-love ties. 

LVII 

So pale they grew this lady guessed it so. 
So wan her gentle breast was fancy-sore. 

Like battled elfins, through her thought would go 
Soft pities meeting tender hopes in war. 

She pondered on their malady by day. 

And all night long it tortured sleep away. 

LVIII 

Till, planning well, she brought them face to face 
And bade them tell her all their hidden ills : 

Why they were parted ; why with wonted 
pace 
They trod no longer on the vineyard hills ; 

Why they grew wan and spake not as of old — 

In sooth, what wind had blown their ardor cold. 

LIX 

Troubled they were, and faltered from her side 
With bended heads and shame upon their 
cheeks. 



LOVE S REVENGE I43 

Yet looked not at each other nor replied 

One word's atonement, though she soft bespeaks. 
Loving in secret, they had thought to hide 
E'en from each other w^hat this lady spied. 

LX 

Yet, natheless, some movement at the lips. 
Some tremble in the eyes and easeless hands. 

Some throb of heart, broke through the dark eclipse. 
Some wuve of pity crossed the barring sands. 

A little space they pondered, fancy-fraught. 

Then parted, each a different way in thought. 

LXI 

No ease they found in closes of the trees ; 

No old-known nook had comfort for their woes ; 
They tried to catch some med'cine from the breeze 

Or care-forgetfulness in green repose. 
Ah, well-a-day ! the winds will laugh amain 
If any set the tune, or laugh again ! 

LXII 

But night fell now, who was their spirits' friend. 
Melodious night with balms upon her breath : 

Then grief forgot her token and would blend 
Into the darkness with a gentle death. 

So, calmly dreaming through the quiet air. 

They plan no meeting, yet together fare. 



144 LOVE S REVENGE 



LXIII 



And both together entered through the arch 
And trode the memoried paths and passages 

To that fair seat, green-walled with lily and larch 
And pendant cedar-knots that hush the breeze : 

There lay the tumbled silks and idle lute ; 

An open book made all things strangely mute. 

LXIV 

Few words they spake, but moved in amity 
Each to his seat and mused the hour long. 

Then, when the dark hung stars in every tree, 
Cosimo rose. It was as if a throng 

Of inner voices called him. " Brother mine," 

He said, " I know not if thy heart divine, 

LXV 

As once it would, my very hope and thought. 
Beat with mine inmost life — for from my heart. 

Even as the light from day, some spell hath caught 
Thee, and we seem as men whom ages part. 

Yet, if thou holdest aught of fellowhood. 

Feel how I love thee, more than breath or blood !" 

LXVI 

So speaking, Cosimo took up the lute 
And struck a tender ditty, singing low 



LOVE S REVENGE I45 

Unto the strings, until, in mellow suit 

Thereto, rose Lippo's voice in underflow. 
It was a song of love-forsaken, trist 
And moving, wrought of forlorn amorist. 

LXVII 

Yet chorded was it with these brothers' mood 
And brought them whole in love ; for as they 
sung 

They paced the time away, or listening stood 
Deep in an alcove where a nimble tongue 

Could double dulcet echoes through the aisles. 

It was a boyish freak, and brought sad smiles 

LXVIII 

About their eyes. Not yet a twelvemonth gone 
They loved the sport, and hallooed sonnets there 

For distant echo from the ringing stone. 
And so they hung now on this haunted air 

Until it weeped away ; and so they fell 

Into a gentle laughter, feigned Vv^ell. 

LXIX 
For time and place had brought them ache of heart. 

And in the memories of that mellow air. 
Re-echoed through the columns and athwart 
The fretted roofs. Love laid his new wounds 
bare : 

13 



146 love's revenge 

" Why w^ere they parted ?" so they 'gan to chide. 
And so apace that lady's image died. 

LXX 

She w^as forsook, yet daily w^andered forth. 
Treading perplexed the vineyard passages. 

And if the wind flung showers from the north ; 
Or if the sunshine twinkled under trees ; 

Or if it cleared or lowered, she loitered there 

In wonder, ever scanning arch and stair, 

LXXI 

Or sometimes on a hillock she would sit. 
Fixed like a seaward statue, hand at brow ; 

Or, when night hovered, closer would she flit. 
Even to the latticed gates, and ponder through : 

Yet of those brothers never saw she aught. 

Neither a voice heard nor an echo caught. 

LXXII 

They were withdrawn in dear communion. 
In secret dread, forsooth, to see her face. 

All pleasant fancies newly were begun ; 

All ditties that might mend the heart apace. 

Ah, they were tremblers. Caught two loves be- 
tween. 

They might not leave their hedging cedar screen. 



LOVE S REVENGE I47 

LXXIII 

Yet rumor of her reached their fearful ears. 

For servants babbled ere they could be hushed. 
And came that aged nun to shed them tears. 

Saying she frenzied. Then those brothers 
flushed 
And fell to silence, or spake absently : 
It was as if they plotted vv^here to flee. 

LXXIV 

And every air seemed laden vv^ith her name. 

And through the blowing boughs they dared 
not look. 
Her whispering step along the arras came ; 

Her presence through the far-off galleries 
shook 
Momently white, then vanished in the shade ; 
Or to the lute her voice a mockery made. 

LXXV 

They were bewildered, yet 'twas soothe to be 
Haunted by one sweet form for evermore. 

They planned forgetfulness, yet seemed to see 
Her image like an angel in their door. 

They drunk of Lethe-dew : she was their dream. 

An unknown loveliness, a whitest beam. 



LOVE S REVENGE 



LXXVI 



" Brother," they said anon, each unto each, 
" We are beset with fancies ; is't not so ? 

This lady haunts us. Let us straight beseech 
Her parting, bid her otherw^here to go. 

Let us fare forth and meet her. It were well 

She left us, if she tarry— who can tell ? — " 

LXXVII 

So went they out at evening secretly 

Into the witched paths. The moon was round. 
Full in the midmost blue, and tower and tree 

Swam in a pale immersion. O'er the ground 
Hung noises of the open summer night : 
Gusts of far music, bells, and hid delight. 

LXXVIII 

A time enchanted was it, and she came. 

Sweeping the lucid shadows with her gown ; 

Listening anon and calling each by name. 
Calling and weeping every alley down. 

Concealed well they were in leafy lair 

Where she must cross a bowery terrace stair. 

LXXIX 

And so they summoned her, declaring how 
Her presence was a thorn against their ease. 



LOVES REVENGE 1 49 

A cloud that hung beyond the serene brow 

Of love, with stormy menace to all peace. 
Wrathful they spake, but ah ! they faltered soon 
From cold command unto a pleading tune. 

LXXX 

They were surprised to subtlest imageries 

And truths that must be whispered at her ears. 

Ah, well-a-day ! she bent upon her knees. 
Praying them mercy ; and in dewy tears 

Melted their souls, yet seemed as rooted there. 

Growing like sweetest poison, deadly fair. 

LXXXI 

Sudden their eyes met in a meaning look : 

They marvelled so to pierce each other's mind ; 

They marvelled so to read, as in a book. 
The selfsame omen secretly divined. 

Yet wherefore marvel ? Were it strange to meet 

A fever wish where love is bitter-sweet ? 

LXXXII 

It was, in truth, a coiled serpent thought 
Which lifted head against that lady's life, 

A monster out of love and error wrought 

That charmed their fingers' fondle with the knife. 

13* 



150 LOVE S REVENGE 

" O Love of years !" they inw^ard groaned, " for 

thee. 
O shrive us. Love, who sin for thee, for thee !" 

LXXXIII 

With nerveless step then Lippo trode av\^ay 
And passed beyond that lady ; but his pace 

Was w^eak of purpose. Ah, he heard her pray. 
And like a dawn love passed across his face. 

He faltered then and mused, and then he clung 

About his brother, whispering, mercy-stung. 

LXXXIV 

Low-voiced, he plead him take the knife and do 
What must be, what must be, or they must die ; 

And Lippo hid his eyes. ... A far cock crew. 
And once a nightingale with tremulous cry 

Melted the night. . . . And when 'twas done they 
stood. 

Cowering, like murderers mid a multitude. 

LXXXV 

For stirring leaves were foot-falls through the trees. 
And voices lay along the spying winds. 

And each of each was frighted. By degrees 
They looked together, as if their broken minds 



LOVES REVENGE I5I 

Remembered, and the new-perfefted tie 
Wrought them a refuge whither they could fly. 

LXXXVI 
But yet they took no step. She was between. 

Fallen down the grass in tender sleeping-wise ; 
Her hair, entendrilled with the breezy green. 

Threw ever-moving shadows on her eyes ; 
Her woven hands lay prayerful on her breast. 
And in a robe of moon-leaves was she drest. 

LXXXVII 

They took no step, for death, with wizard mien. 
Had closed her in a charmed ring, and stood 

Wide-arching speflral wings, like shadows seen. 
Wherethrough the moon fell — so, in fevered 
mood, 

Themseemed ; and so they turned away and fled. 

Each down a difi^erent path that seaward led. 

LXXXVIII 

Nor ever stopped, but shipped and sailed away. 
Mad-seeming men who moved eternally ; 

Circling the seas for terror, day and day. 

Yet dream-encountering what they thought to 
flee; 

Forsworn of brotherhood that might not be. 

Because, of old. Love writ a hard decree. 




AMYMONE 

Sea-echo in the silence of the wood 

And all the sloping wood ringed by the sea. 



Far down the years in Argos, ere the trill 
Of piping satyrs had forsook the shade ; 
Ere yet the horn of early hunting gods. 
Hurry of hound, and whirr of oaken bow 
Had left the green seclusion tenantless ; 
Where bathing nymphs, amid the heat of noon. 
Leaned bankward, fearing not an impious eye ; 
And fauns could revel with the falling mast 
That lay ungathered year-long under shade. 
Sweeter for rains that otherwhere decay : 
Hither at morn in middle forest came 
The new king's daughter, Amymone, clad 
In girdled green, with quiver at her back 



AMYMONE 153 

And in her hand a carven sapling bow : 
Sandalled and braceleted, and very fair. 
But pale with thirst, for all the liberal land 
Was doomed of salt Poseidon unto drought. 

Ere yet the sun rose she abroad the wood. 

Leaving the king's roof of entwisted boughs. 

Had wandered with her ewer, seeking far 

For rushy brook or rock-collefted rain. 

Or taller grasses by a secret spring 

That hide yet babble of its hermitage. 

But though she followed every beckoning hill 

And serpent stream-bed that but now had shrunk 

From wilted reeds and drying pebbles back 

Into the crystal heart of its deep spring. 

Leaving the margent moist and rippling forth 

The inward bubble of descending rills. 

Though all the leaves were brittle with the dew. 

And ocean-murmurs came through open miles 

Of sand and grass with news of plenteous waves 

Undrinkable, that laughed about the land — 

Yet found she not a lily's beaker full 

Of water, nor heard aught of rill or spring. 

And so she leaned, ensprinkled of the shade. 
Between wide antlers of an oaken root. 
Humming an orison sweet and reverent. 
Which maidens murmur at the altar-side 



154 AMYMONE 

To angered naiads, or, when lambs are slain. 
Sing, circled on the green : 

O water-nymph ! 
Come back and woo thy liquor from the sod ; 
Let run thy singing waters, pebble-touched 
To music, like a whisper of thy lips 
When tanned young hunters kiss thee for a draught. 
Play ditties on thy reeded margent — play 
The cool notes of thy lyrics under-tree 
And be a saving circlet to our field ! 

So sang, and yet again sang what she knew 
Of beldam charms and catches made to bring 
The singers' feet to pool-sides ; but the land 
Was spelled of him who mocked it with his brine. 
And not a drop of dew was drinkable. 
So she had slept of heat and weariness. 
Dozing to dreams of water, memory-thronged 
Of all the pleasant brook-sides where she dipped 
Unsandalled foot or stooped with mirrored cheek 
To draw the chilly bubbles to her throat. 

But noises woke her now anon, of birds 
Answering in loops of echo ; now of leaves 
Coaxed into sulky quarrel by the winds. 
With long recrimination, till at last 
The silence settled like a troubled pool 



AMYMONE 155 

Smoothed of its circles. Once a foot-fall came 
Nigh to her shelter, and she moved in sleep. 
But fell again to dreams that dimpled off 
In silent sleeping laughter through her locks. 

But that dull foot-fall on the forest dust 
Went not away. From bole to thicket crept. 
Prick-eared and eager, all his wanton life 
Hot in the eyes, a faun with knees to earth 
And shaggy fingers in the yielding leaves. 
Making a pathway for his timorous sight. 

Long gazed he ; long she slumbered ; till the sun. 
Drawing to westward, rippled to her eyes. 
Warmed them apart, and waked her. Wide she 

threw 
Her arms and yawned, and rose, and lazily took 
Her bow and drew her girdle of green about 
Her open, shoulders — then, with many a look 
Hither and thither for forgotten ways. 
Sat down in thought, half drowsy, on the sod : 

No water, not so much as breathes away 
From one anemone in morning's air ; 
Nor aught of food ; nor shelter for the night ; 
Nor kin; nor handmaid — O Diana chaste. 
Come with thy well-thewed troop, man-harming 
hounds. 



156 AMYMONE 

Thy kind proteftorate over wood-lost maids. 
And shield me from the terrors of the dark ! 

So murmured, listening ; yet no blast of horn 

Answered, nor even bass of rapid hounds. 

And she had deemed Diana recreant. 

Or that her prayer was thwarted by some wrong 

Done to an oread ; or that early stars. 

Eavesdropping at the edges of a wood. 

Had borne the unwooable moon report of her 

Wooed in the leaf-dusk. 

O Diana, queen. 
Forgive, forgive, and take me to thy isles 
That lie leaf-centred in thy sacred pool. 
Where morning always is, and dew, and dawn. 
Nor any night fears. Take me to thy isles ! 

Yet succor came not, nor propitious sound. 

Save the dull rhythm of a far-off hoof 

That rose and fell with the breeze ; and once it 

ceased. 
But came again redoubled, near and near. 
Until the ground vibrated and the trees. 
That take with huge repose midsummer storms. 
Trembled — but she, the ruler's daughter, heard 
The sound with joy, and raised her bow and stood 
Ready to wing an arrow and so end 
Diana's chase who came with all her nymphs. 



AMYMONE 157 

A stag it was, branch-horned and noble-browed. 
Panting round nostrils wide with agony. 
And thicket-torn with many a league of flight. 
Startled he hung, at breadth of open sward. 
Sheer on his haunches, neck and eager ears 
Curved for the horn-blast, and his great wide 

eyes 
Weltering to drops. So momently, but hark ! 
Tarantara ! — like music blown across 
An evening water, and with one full bound 
He plunged away for covert — plunged and met 
The coming arrow with his bony horns 
That glanced its keen point backward. And the 

faun. 
Pealing a cry out like the noise of pines 
Wind-driven, leapt to the lower boughs and fell 
Maddened, fell to the greensward at her feet. 



But when with painful hands he drew the barb 
From forth his hip, and rose and like a bough 
Left sudden by a bird, tottered two ways and, last. 
Reached for her, kneeling, and pulled down her 

head 
Unto his mouth — then, with a frighted scream. 
She swept the trees, calling on gods and men. 
And last Poseidon, to appease his wrath 
Because he wrought a woe for rites undone : 



158 AMYMONE 

O God of the wide sea, with populous waves. 
Thy warriors, doing battle for our realms ! 
Hear me, O hear thy daughter, heed her tears. 
Who loves not anything so much as thee — 
Thee and thy murmurs and thy multitudes 
Of billows that make music with thy sands ! 
Save me, Poseidon, god of the wide sea 1 

Thereat the outer shores grew thunderous. 
And noises like a surge amid the trees. 
Grinding the bark and gulleying all the ground 
Gathered, as when a sheet of loosened snow 
Cracks from a crag and bears the forest down ; 
And, dolphin-drawn, upon a front of spume 
Poseidon came. Drenched was his foamy beard 
That, like a cataraft, fell across his breast. 
And dripping were the tresses of his head ; 
But all his scaly mantle hung with shells 
And twisted knots of coral, and his car, 
A giant pearl made hollow, swam atop 
The billows like the white moon through a 

cloud. 
His face was passing aged, but a light. 
As if youth dwelt within, immortal youth 
Guarded by wrinkles, shone from his sea-green 

eyes 
That yearned with love. Before him, in a ring. 
Swam sea-girls, looking backward for command. 



AMYMONE 159 

Yet oaring ever on with green-white arms ; 
And these he bade with trident and with voice. 
That echoed out the sea-roar, bring to him 
The fleeing Amymone. 

Like a wreath 
Of blossoms twisted in a beauteous head. 
So did they swim around her and bear up 
Her frighted body to his heaving car. 
Then with a long kiss, while his tumbled beard 
Shut her from sight, he greeted her and turned 
His team, and called his eager waters back. 
And drove to sea — but she came not again. 



THE GRAVE-DIGGER 

'T'HE Sexton, idling from his in-door work, 

"*■ Came forth upon the green, and lit his pipe. 
And hugged his knees for gossip. There, hip-deep. 
Turning the clay up to the shady grass. 
The grave-digger was busy at his grave. 
So, between puffs of smoke, the talk began 
With weather prophecies and village news. 
And then a silence. Well, the Sexton said. 
Musing, " Elige, you've dug a deal of graves 
And so have I — how many, now, d'ye s'pose 
In all your life ?" And 'Lige stuck in his spade. 
Leaned elbows on the turf, and settled down 
For sociability. " Since I been here. 
Let's see, a grave a day — or maybe more. 
They die by clock down there" — he looked across 
The hill to where the town lay in its nest 
Woven of valleys — " like a herd let in. 
One every day, to where the hammer falls. 
And every day a funeral. Once it made 
Queer feelings in my throat to think about it. 
But, Lord ! it's nothing, after all, but death. 
What's death !" The Sexton shut his drowsy eyes 
And, nodding head, assented : " Ya, what's death ? 
A grave, a coffin, then go home and sup, 
1 60 



THE GRAVE-DIGGER l6l 

And come again next day and dig and dine." 
So, with a softer posture of his arms, 
'Lige set his tongue at wagging on his woes. 
" I've seen a heap of trouble in my time" — 
And then, the Sexton : " What of trouble now. 
With work a-plenty and a liking for it ! 
Don't talk of trouble j think about your work." 
But 'Lige took little comfort — fixed his eyes 
Afar away, and muttered how he hoped. 
Once, for the wealth to buy a woman's heart. 
And how, to get it, all his wits at work 
But brought him daily wages year by year ; 
And how he turned to tipple for relief. 
And came to be the mockery of the town. 
And married — married where he could — and had 
A daughter, dwelling now in yonder streets, 
Happy and hale, with children at her hem ! 
" What ! living there r" The Sexton, all amazed. 
Opened his arms, undid his legs, and stared. 
Awakened by so sweet a draught of news, 
Pat for the door-bench when the neighbors came. 
" Yes, there, and living in good ladyhood. 
With friends and fineries. I could go to her. 
And will some day — some day. Better than stop 
Here by the church in hermit solitude. 
I will some day, and settle down for life ! 
But there's the clock — nine — I must finish straight 
Or this last sleeper goes without a bed. 
14* 



l62 THE GRAVE-DIGGER 

So" — and he lifted down the heavy lid 

For measure, humming bits of Auld Lang Syne, 

Then took his spade, the Sexton puffing on 

In silence, till his reverising eye 

Lit on the name-plate of the cedarn lid : 

** What name is that ?" and strained his purblind 

sight 
To read. Said 'Lige, " I never look at names ; 
They're only men and women, nothing more. 
One less don't matter where they're crowded so." 
Then hummed a note and laughed : " It's useful 

work. 
This clearing off the earth and making room ; 
They'll miss us. Uncle, when we come to dig 
Each other's graves, more than I miss the best 
Of them. They jostled me out — so it goes. 
I have the laugh now — there ! don't tumble in. 
I'll spell it for you — Rachael Ham-il-ton !" 

As if his breath were gone, he fell and grasped 
Both hands upon the lid, and read again, 
** Rachael," and bent and read it close, and cried, 
** It must be — Rachael Hamilton — my daughter — 
My daughter — she was all the hope I had !" 

And then the tears, stunned backward by the blow. 

Fell, and his head fell on his folded arms 

And he leaned upon the grave-edge, till the sexton. 



THE GRAVE-DIGGER 163 

Soothing with consolations learned by heart 
At many a burial, coaxed him to the grass 
And sent him home in heavy grief. 

But he 
Took up the spade, and puffed his pipe, and dug. 
Unmoved, a grave for Rachael Hamilton. 



A ROADSIDE PORTRAIT 

T_TE was a little bended man 

■*■ Acquainted with the weather. 

His skin had taken sunny tan 

On high-road and on heather. 
Gray dappled through his sable hair. 

But blue was in his eyes. 
That looked up when you called him 

With a kind of meek surprise. 

His throat was corded all with seams 

That when he talked were tightened. 
His look was somehow full of dreams : 

He seemed as he were frightened ; 
And yet the muscles in his arm 

Would fell a maddened steer — 
It was because of gentleness 

He seemed so full of fear. 



He wore no coat. His gingham shirt 

Looked out his faded waistcoat. 
Which was a garment free from dirt. 

But far from last or best cut. 
164 



A ROADSIDE PORTRAIT 165 

His hat, so well it knew the sun. 

The shade of roadway trees, 
A very thing of nature it 

Had turned by slow degrees. 

To say he chewed tobacco — well ! 

It seemed his only diet. 
His pleasure was to fill his pail 

And ruminate in quiet ; 
And round the corners of his mouth 

The little lines of brown 
Would mingle into laughter, now. 

If Herbert came from town. 

His business ? — He was just around 

To water people's horses. 
He had a stand on shady ground 

Beside the best of courses. 
'Twas painted green, and on the top 

Were tumblers in a ring. 
And pails were standing ready there 

Beside a dripping spring. 

And if he talked at all, it was 

Of home, or else of seasons. 
He knew the name of every buzz. 

And had a score of reasons 



1 66 A ROADSIDE PORTRAIT 

For cloud and clear and wet and dry ; 

Could tell the notes of birds ; 
And yet he'd spit and turn his cud. 

But didn't take to words. 



And Herbert ! How his lowered eye 

Would turn up in a twinkle 
When ten-year Herbert trod anigh 

And made the meal-can tinkle ! 
He didn't take to talkin' much. 

But Herbert there, he'd bet, 
'D make a talker 'fore he'd done — 

That is, if he was let ! 

For Herbert was the hope he had 

The while he meditated ; 
If weather made the business bad 

He just chewed on and waited. 
" For some day, sure as guns is iron ! 

That boy'll make it right" — 
And then : *' Well, no use gettin' down ; 

Clear up, I guess, 'fore night." 

The day through he was cheerful as 

The robins in the hedges. 
He'd duck his hat and hand his glass 

With thanks for slender wages ; 



A ROADSIDE PORTRAIT 167 

And when the early stars came out — 

He had no other clock — 
He'd put his empty buckets by 

And turn the rusty lock. 

Then homeward. It was seven miles. 

He didn' care a copper. 
It made him ripple into smiles 

To think about his supper. 
The journey gave him appetite. 

And then it saved the fare. 
And then it was so kind-a pleasant 

Thinkin' of 'em there. 

And down the darkened road he went 

With tin can and umbrella. 
Embodiment of sweet content 

And lowly love of fellow : 
For underneath his swarthy skin 

Was very little wit. 
But a heart was in his bosom 

With a dearer thing in it. 







15 




FRAGRANCE AND SONG 

Fragrance, as if a rose had burst and blown 
Its odor through the slumbering even air. 
And this, if any followed to its lair. 

The very heart of sweetness were his own ! 

Song, like a lute within a leafy wone 
To woo the outer traveller circle there. 
Who, if he enter, lying clear and bare. 

May find the well of music, reed-o'ergrown ! 

So were thy graces, so thy syllables. 

Thine eyes, thy voice without a thought of art ; 
Like song and odor, these were Ariel spells 

To lure the wanderer inward to the heart. 
Which I, being dusty from ascetic cells. 

Found not ere meddling custom made us part. 



171 



TO POVERTY 

/^OME, link thine arm in mine, good Poverty, 

^^ Penniless yeoman of the tattered gear ; 
Let's amble down the brazen world and steer 

For ports where toil is aristocracy. 

Utopia laughs not at our sackcloth. See ! 

Here's fair Sir Lackland and right many a peer. 
With doublets threadbare as our own full near. 

Would vow us love and hospitality. 

Our gold's laid up in sunsets safe from thieves ; 
And all our current silver's in the stars. 

We've naught to lose save honest hearts, who 
steals 

Shall get more treasure than he knows or feels. 
Here's sweetest roots from out our scrip, good sirs. 

And waters clear, and couches in the leaves. 



172 



DUALITY 

' I ''HE earth for us has beauty infinite : 
■*■ The grasses and the greenwood and the 
streams ; 
The little buds that, like our eyes from dreams, 
O^en to dearer truth ; the dawn of light 
About the deeps of morning ; the blown, white 
Navies of clouds ; whatever lives or seems. 
Yet earth has other beauty when she gleams 
A star among her sisters of the night ! 

So of the soul : we know but half of man. 
The deed for good or evil, or the sweet 

Song of the voice, or subtle moulded plan. 
But, like a radiance rising at his feet, 

God looks upon a star that takes the van 
And leads us ever upward to his seat. 



15* 173 



ORCHARD-LORE 

np'WICE in the year the orchard feels a thrill, 

-■■ Twice is it happy past the heart of man : 

When hurrying blossoms break the winter's ban. 

And when the boughs bend down to autumn's will. 

These are the seasons which its life fulfil. 
Its guerdon for the sultry summer tan. 
Its fee for icy fetters ; this the plan 

Which rears a sweetness from the soil of ill. 

Heart, it is thus with thee ! The day, the night 
Tread onward at thy side down all the years ; 
The ill perplexes and the sorrow sears. 

And yet thou hast thy holy-tides of light : 

Buds break about thee, freshening in thy tears ; 

The harvest gathers under winter's blight. 



174 



HOMER 

A BROW of stone and sunken eyes of stone. 
And lips apart for uttering Ilion's woes; 
And multitudes of hair a sea-wind blows 
Behind him like a ragged sail outblown : 
His face uppropped with giant arms on knees 
At gaze among old sunless vasts of thought : 
Behold him statued, where the clouds are caught 
Along Olympus, brooding over Greece ! 

The blue ^gean waves were at his feet. 

And cities shut in craggy cavities ; 

Yet his eternal stare went over-seas 
To towers leaguer'd with a warrior fleet. 

Deep in his ruined eyes that Troy arose. 

Yet builded where his roaring rhythm flows. 



175 



A GREEK PANEL 

A N Attic girl with garlands on her hair 

Holding aloft a light-touched instrument ; 
And, at her side, a youth with cheeks curve-bent. 
Blowing melodious reeds with mellow air ; 
And, slow of foot, a timbrel beating pair 

Whose rounded mouths with Panic hymns are 

rent : ' 
Thereafter Bacchic women, wine o'er-spent. 
And Moenads, .loose of robe and ankle bare. 

Behold ! as if a dream could learn delay. 
Or Beauty's prelude keep eternal march : 
With carven joy, down carven forest arch. 

This troop treads, ever fluting time away — 
Blows out beneath the leaves of marble larch 

The marble music of a golden day. 



176 



ATALANTA 

■jpVAUGHTER of Jasus, Atalanta, set 
■*~^ Her suitors each a race to win her hand ; 
For like a breeze her beauty stirred the land. 
And prince and shepherd loved her — so were met, 
Enringed of many a peopled parapet — 

To outstrip her on the long and level sand. 
Or, failing, death ! But keen Hippomenes 
planned 
Subtly and snared her in a golden net. 

For Venus sent him apples over-sea. 

Precious as kingdoms, which he craftily rolled 
Along the foot-way where the racers prest ; 

And Atalanta, stooping for the gold. 
Caught here and here an apple up ; but he 

Sped on and caught her, vanquished, to his breast. 



177 



MOHAMMED AND SEID 




" HEROES AND 
HERO worship' 



WEPT by the hot wind, stark, untrackable. 
The stony desert stretches to the sky. 
Deep-printed shadows at the tent-door lie. 
And camels slumber by the burning well. 
One weeps within, wrinkled and dusk of face. 
White-haired and lordly, o'er the new-brought 

dead : 
Mohammed over Seid, who loved and read 
Truth in the master when a fierce disgrace 
Burned in his blood and none would heed the word. 
'* Behold the Prophet how he mourns a slave !" 
So the slave's daughter, and Mohammed heard : 
" A friend has lost a friend. What Allah gave 
His wisdom takes. He never yet has erred !" 
Thus said and made the slain a martial grave. 



178 



ON HEARING AN OLD PIANO 

T THINK if you could play and I could lean 

■*■ Under the lamp with open book on knee 
Forever, life would have felicity 

Enough to keep my thoughts forever green. 

For when you sweep the keys, some gentle scene 
Of dipping meadow opens unto me. 
Or sweet eternal pipers make a glee 

On pipes that knew the talk of Tempe's treen. 

Up-stairs it travels over landing ways. 

Through doors and curtains, mellowed to my 
sense. 

Half art, half nature, for the player plays 
Old ditties of a tender reverence ; 

And, thrilling with its ancient forest days, 
A voice of nature is the instrument's. 



179 



SUDDEN NOISE IN THE STREET 

T X THEN airs are keen, and cosey curtains down, 
' ' And books lie open underneath the lamp. 
And now, at sudden bell or heavier tramp, 
I lift the casement, gazing on the town ; 

Methinks the white moon with a sweeter cheer 
Hallows the room because of dreaming meads 
And witched trees she looks on as she leads 
Her shadowy troop through winter's atmos- 
phere. 

Here in the study, o'er the pidlured walls. 
Melt frozen forests, chilly running streams ; 

And where the books are, hover light footfalls. 
Bidden of poets from their cold demesnes — 

The noise is gone, the curtain falls, and yet 

The page's vistas with the moon's have met. 



AT DAYLIGHT 

T DID not dream my eyes were shut until 

■*■ I felt thee. Sleep, within my arms, thy hair 
Falling about my shoulders and thy bare 

Lips plucking to a kiss my drowsy will. 

And, ere I knew, we crossed a shadowy hill 
And came, the other side, to very fair 
And flowered meadows, where the shepherds 
wear 

Wings, and the pipes blow ditties that are still. 

And then we sat us down upon the green 
And thou, with palm upon my moving lip. 
Told stories of a curious craftsmanship 

To muffled music that would break between. 
But lo ! when dawn was where the heavens dip. 

Mine eyes were open on the olden scene ! 



i6 i8i 



OBLIVION 

OLEEP, come unto me, let me feel thine arms 
^^ About my neck ; and, looking in thine eyes. 

Let me see dreams of many a dim surprise. 
And magic countries in their drowsy charms ! 
And hearken, smoothe away the dull alarms 

Of life that make us suffer and be wise ; 

Let tender eddies of thy slumber rise 
And bear me outward past the dogging harms ! 

Ah, so to take thy touch upon my lids. 
So pillowed on thy bosom. Mother Sleep, 

I could give up whate'er thy mandate bids : 
Stack all my hopes in one autumnal heap 

For thee to garner, though it were to rest 

Forever in the solace of thy breast ! 



WOOD-TRYST 

/^ KEATS, the woods are tired of waiting 
^^ thee. 

The fauns lurk down the shade to hear thee 
come. 

And many a day the satyr-pipes are dumb 
That blew thee greeting under every tree. 
No dryad, startled from her mid-bough sleep. 

But dreams of music thou wouldst teach the wind ; 

No naiad, floated in her sedge to bind. 
But hears thy footfall through the leafy deep ! 

Some one day wilt thou tread the old-known woods 
And these make happy ? Some one sylvan hour 

Wilt flute them treeward ? We, who know thy 
moods : 
Leaf-ditties and light musics of a shower. 

May find thee day-long for a hushed guess. 

Threading the leaves in shadowy forest dress ! 



183 



INCANTATION 

TREATS, through the years, that like a little 

■*-^ wood. 

Close round my way and dapple me with shades, 
I've found thee often at the edge of glades 

Leading the dance ; or, in a hermit hood. 

Thoughtful about a bird-note. I have stood 
Sometimes and listened with the tranced maids 
In day-long meadows, or, when even fades. 

Have followed, rustling, many a forest rood. 

And so 'tis meet with wreathed syllables 

Each year I come to where I found thee once. 

And crave a grace and summon thee with calls 
Of fellowhood from forth thy sylvan haunts ; 

And — nay ! of Lincoln-green thy tunic falls 
And ditties of the outlaw are thy chants ! 



184 



A TOUCH OF NATURE 

T RAISED an oar and silvery little balls 
Of shining water sprinkled in the air ; 
And straight there came a hip-risen Naiad there 

Calling to sisters with her water-calls, 

A ring swam round my boat with green-white skins. 
And oaring bodies underneath the wave 
That wooed me to their cockle-paven cave 

With dripping faces full of mythic sins. 

One climbed with sea-weed zone upon the bow. 
And one, with rounded mouth, a music made 

I dared not heed. Yet others, white of brow. 
Yearned upward through a yellow water-shade, 

I raised an oar with fringe of silver rain. 

And sea-ringed Greece stood by a western main. 



i6* 185 



F. W. 

APRIL 22, 1886 

O AVE in the air which took his breath and blows 
^ Remembrance of him to the herald buds ; 

The grasses that uncurl about the woods — 
Green elements of his being ; save in the rose. 
The leaves, the boughs, the articulate brook that 
flows 
With language of the world he went to ; broods 
Of nestlings that are spring's beatitudes : 
Saving in these he stirs not from repose. 

Yet, for the one voice that was kind and true, 
A myriad voices babble. He is here 

Who traversed once the city tumult through, 
A murmurous spirit of the atmosphere. 

Whispering of life that takes a heavenlier hue. 
Yet holds, once loved, the peopled spaces dear. 



186 




WALT WHt 



T TE was in love with truth and knew her 

■*" near — 

Her comrade, not her suppliant on the knee : 
She gave him wild melodious words to be 

Made music that should haunt the atmosphere. 

She drew him to her bosom, day-long dear. 
And pointed to the stars and to the sea. 
And taught him miracles and mystery. 

And made him master of the rounded year. 

Yet one gift did she keep. He looked in vain. 
Brow-shaded, through the darkness of the mist. 

Marking a beauty like a wandering breath 
That beckoned, yet denied his soul a tryst : 

He sang a passion, yet he saw not plain 

Till kind earth held him and he spake with 
death. 



187 



AT WALDEN POND 

'"T'HE wind was like a trumpet in the pines. 

The waves made syllables against the shore. 

And every wilding bud about me bore 
News at its lips and made me nodded signs. 
And wherefore ? I was pacing through the vines. 

Treading the turf the feet of Thoreau wore. 

Had hand upon the latch of Nature's door 
Where came the Seer to learn her whispered lines. 

In leaf, in blade, in pebble, in the air. 

And in the steel-blue waters of the pond. 

Even in the sandy clod, they hovered there : 
For he who brought her radiance from beyond. 

And he who grasped her great hands brown and 
bare. 
Have found the earth a mourner long and fond. 




TO ARCADY 

How shall I go by land or sea 

To Arcady, to Arcady ? 
With shepherd's reed I pipe and plead, 
And wander many a furrowed mead. 
Yet never come by force or fee 

To Arcady, to Arcady ! 

Do forests grow so green to see 
In Arcady, in Arcady ? 
Do dingles hold the shady fold 
Of wattles made and baked mould ; 
Do berries bud that used to be 

In Arcady, in Arcady ? 



And early flocks that nipt the lea. 
In Arcady, in Arcady ! 



191 



1^2 TO ARCADY 

And fluting light that took a flight 
To carols in the oaken height : 
Are all bereft that wantoned free 
In Arcady, in Arcady ! 

Ah, well-a-day, what eye may see 

The forest-tops of Arcady ? 
Somewhile, who seek, may seem to speak 
With echoes from a woody peak. 
But ah, with day they fade and flee. 
The forest-tops of Arcady ! 

No woolly sheep at root of tree. 

No Arcady, no Arcady ! 

No flute to blow, no wheat to mow. 

The herds by Pan forgotten go ; 

No wood-folk at their ringed glee. 

No Arcady, no Arcady ! 

How many leagues by land or sea 
To Arcady, to Arcady ? 
Which is the way by brook or bay 
To fluted music ? Which the way, 
O Tityrus, tell it to me ! 

To Arcady, to Arcady ? 



UNDER-BOUGH 

A LEAFIE roof, a grassie bed, 

A flute to whisper in. 

And, if she bear a laughing head, 

A maid — yet none of kin ! 
A maid to loiter down the leaves. 

Her hat of twisted hay. 
And dimples looking out her sleeves 

That blow a wanton way ; 
A bodice, all of linen, laced 

To where her bosom brims ; 
And, through a breezy kirtle, traced 

The slope of bending limbs : 
Her head, a little listening-wise, 

Enbrowned of the sun. 
Withal, a mockery in her eyes — 

Pipe, call me such an one ! 
And if she love an oaten flute. 

Or, perdie ! love who flutes, 
I vow to Pan a pipe salute, 

A moon of mellow fruits ! 



17 193 



DAPHNIS 

T)IPE on, brown boy, pipe on ! thy panic notes 
■*■ Died not away on warm Sicilian airs ; 
Nor fell acold like winged music-throats 

That pipe among what green the winter spares. 
Who listen hear the time tap of thy foot 

And hear the melody ripple from thy reeds 
This day, as when thou sat at oaken root 

And shepherds heard flock-tending in the meads ! 

Some early step along a forest edge 

Shall often meet thee merry unawares ; 

Or find thee nested in a fountain sedge 
Unto the cattle fluting : these, thy lairs. 

Still haunted are, if any listen well. 

With rustic ditties piped in Enna's dell. 



194 



A RIVAL OF ORPHEUS 

"VTESTED in an oaken root, 
■*■ ^ Shadow-overflung ; 
Fingering at his idle flute 

When the world was young ; 
Hear the silly, sylvan suit 

Once a shepherd sung : 

Where the nibbled grass is juicy. 

By a bubbling brook. 
Leafy-hatted, lay my Lucy 

Of her flock forsook. 
Pan, the lady Syrinx you see — 

Hath she rosier look ? 

Nay, my Lucy, she is slender. 

Sweet a berry brown. 
And the summer air can bend her 

Like a fruit-limb down. 
Trilling at a ditty tender 

Through her kirtle-gown. 

But, alack ! she loved a wooer 
Played upon a lyre. 

195 



196 A RIVAL OF ORPHEUS 

Out the trees he travelled to her. 

Clad in green attire. 
Making psalmodies to sue her 

Tinkled from the vv^ire. 

Lo, he had a lordly feature 

Like a wandering god ; 
Played, and every forest creature 

To his music trod ; 
And he lulled them, like a teacher 

Seated on the sod. 

Supple trees, atiptoe shaken. 

Danced it to the tune ; 
Rocks, of rooted rest forsaken. 

Circled down the noon. 
Well-a-day ! if Lucy waken 

Through her shady swoon ! 

Lack ! anon she rose and — hearken. 
How the music wooed — 

Fled through arches green and barken 
Down a solitude ; 

Fled where rings of leafage darken 
Round a grassy rood. 

There she found him, sylvan-seated 
'Mid his circled slaves : 



A RIVAL OF ORPHEUS igj 

Drowsy, hideous, fierce, goat-feeted. 

Foaled in forest-caves — 
There, though all the meadow bleated. 

She'd attend his staves. 

Though as sweet as Pan I fluted 

Many a lonely day. 
Love or pipe but little booted 

If he deigned to play — 
Year-long hath my Lucy footed 

To his roundelay ! 



17- 



WITCH-MUSIC 

A FLUTED note was in the air. 
Heigh ho, the Spring ! 
Fluted in a sunny lair. 

Hey, ding-a-ding ! 
The green it wantoned on the ground. 
Tripping to the merry round. 
Wake, Winter, forth and fare. 

Heigh ho, the Spring ! 

It was a piper under trees. 

Heigh ho, the Spring ! 
Ever to himself he glees. 

Hey, ding-a-ding ! 
None have eyed him, yet he blows 
Blossom where his piping goes. 
Wake, Winter, forth and freeze. 

Heigh ho, the Spring ! 




AN IDLER'S CATCH 

Oh, lazy, lazy life ! 
All day with oaten fife 

To lie a-piping ; 
To see the sheep below. 
To see the waters flow. 

The apples riping. 

All day to blow a snatch 

Of shepherd huts and thatch. 

And flutes and lovers ; 
Of gleaners in the field. 
And flails the yeomen wield. 

And greenwood covers. 



Forget the golden fleece 
And pipe an age of peace 
And lazy leisure. 



199 



200 AN IDLER S CATCH 

Go down the hills again 
With young Sicilian men 

To danced measure. 

Oh lazy, lazy life, 
I trill with idle fife 

Thy quiet folly : 
Thy grassy ease I blow. 
Thy loves — aye, there I go- 

Thy melancholy ! 



A FOREST CATCH 

'T'HE ways be green with leafy walls 

■*■ That lead to Arden wood. 
And down the trunks a fluter calls : 

Hey, nonny O ! Hey, nonny O ! 
And under-tree a fluter calls 
To shady solitude. 

Far in the leaf-ways are his lairs ; 

And all at root of tree 
With rounded lip he blows his airs : 

Hey, nonny O ! Hey, nonny O ! 
To bended head he blows his airs 

Of idle melody ! 

Who'd have a thatch within the shawe 

And coat of Lincoln-green ? 
Who'd flute away the wintry flaw ? 

Hey, nonny O ! Hey, nonny O ! 
Who'd live ! — come hither, here's no law 

But love and losel treen ! 

Here's nuts that shower in the leaves. 

And sweets o' greenwood fare. 
And fruits about the weathered eaves : 



202 A FOREST CATCH 

Hey, nonny O ! Hey, nonny O ! 
And ale beneath the bleached eaves 
For age and crooked care. 

With boughs to mark the motley year 
And flutes to keep us young. 

Come hither, quaff o' birken cheer. 

Hey, nonny O ! Hey, nonny O ! 

Come hither, taste o' forest cheer 
And tune a merry tongue ! 



PHYLLIS 

"PHYLLIS lives in oaken shade ; 
■*- Lives in mead Phylander. 
Piping goes he, green arrayed. 

Every alley under — 
She will carol down the glade. 

Flute nor love command her. 

Piper, take thee hood and bow. 

Trill a Sherwood ditty. 
Make thee ease where meadows go ; 

She'll not come for pity — 
Coaxed love were ever slow. 

Slow in shawe or city. 

Phyllis waits in oaken green ; 

Wanders mead Phylander : 
She will dally dawn to e'en 

Forest edges under. 
Haste thee, piper, through the treen. 

Flute and love command her ! 



203 



"THE TRYSTALL TREE" 

A T every step a sonnet 
Made Arden musical. 
When horn and feathered bonnet 
Were cast at even-call. 

And out the woody arches 
Was song the live-long day : 

Of bowmen at their marches ; 
Of maids at roundelay. 

For birds they were the teachers. 
And brooks they set the tune. 

And 'twas death for pious preachers 
To show their buckled shoon. 

And heigh ho ! but for money 

'Twould be a happy year 
In the dingles green and sunny 

An if Robin once were here ! 

But of old the flutes were barken 

That rippled melodies. 
And we — alas ! we hearken 

To the axe-stroke in the trees. 
204 



LYDIAN AIRS 

np AP the turf and tune thy head ! 
■"■ Boy, I know the fluting. 
Down the leat-ways though it fled, 
Down the forest vanished — 
Boy, thou still art fluting ; 
We, 'tis we, are dead ! 

Round thy lip and blow and blow ! 

Swift the tripping fingers. 
Under forests, far and slow. 
Echoes out of Tempe flow — 

Boy, the music lingers ; 
We, 'tis we, who go ! 



i8 205 



A CATCH 



"PiPING down a meadow dell 
■*- Came a shepherd ; came a maid. 
He'd be trilling : " Love me well." 
She : " But Love's afraid." 

Cradled then in oaken roots. 

She would sing and let him pass. 

Nay, he would not — brought his flutes 
And piped upon the grass. 

She " Alack !" and he " Hey, nonny !" 

Half a summer's day. 
Now she twitched her kirtle bonny. 

Laughed and ran away. 

II 

Piping down a meadow dell 

Came a shepherd ; came a maid. 

She was trilling : " Love me well." 

He : " But Love's afraid." 
206 



207 



Where were grasses twixt the roots. 
He, with lazy knees acrook. 

Trilled a ditty down the flutes — 
Would she deign a look ? 

Half beside him on the heather 

She has hovered soon : 
All anon they trill together, 

" Love me well," the tune. 



CATCHES 
I 

'T*YRLE, tyrle, the pipes go sweet, 

-*■ Out the barley, down the wheat. 
Up a meadow, then to meet — 
What, but Dolly's dancing feet ! 

Dolly dainty, Dolly fleet. 
Dancing down the flocks of neat. 
Hey ! for Dolly — Hark, repeat : 
Tyrle, tyrle, the pipes go sweet ! 

II 

Pipes that blow of love 

Under oaken shade. 
Where the birds above 

Whistle at their trade : 
Love ! Love ! Love ! 

These and grassy glade. 

These and quiet maid. 
Make — Love, Love, Love ! 

208 



A WOOING CATCH 

'"P^HE buds are barren gold 
-*- And the world it is but mould. 
Then hey, nonny, nonny ! 
When love is bought and sold. 

An if thou brought a purse. 
Yet were my wooing worse ; 
Then hey, nonny, nonny ! 
For boughten love's a curse. 

Alack, then, take my heart. 
Undowered as thou art. 

Then hey, nonny, nonny ! 
We'll love or else we'll part. 



1 8* 209 



A CHANGE OF FACE 

TF love came up the valley 
"*■ And I went down the hill, 
D' you think I'd turn and dally ? 
D' you think I'd linger still ? 

No, no ; I'd up and flout him 
And laugh his aim away : 

My heart and I we doubt him. 
We doubt him night and day. 

But if he'd lay his bow down 
And take a face I know. 

Why, maybe, then I'd go down 
And marry with my foe. 

Why, then, I'd curtsy low down 
And marry with my foe ! 




AT KING OF PRUSSIA INN 

Sweet daughter of the landlord hale 

Who keeps the King of Prussia, 
'Twas look and pass ; but, bonny lass. 

What worlds I'd give to buss ye ! 
I saw you through the tap-room door. 

With steaming cheer held high. 
But though you ran in busy haste 

I caught one truant eye. 

All in the tap with oaken beams 

Well smoked an aged brown. 
Mine host drew off the beaded ale 

And bowed his ready crown ; 
But though his brew was of the best 

And gossip was aflow, 
I caught a glance was like good wine 

To put the cheeks aglow. 



AT KING OF PRUSSIA INN 

The Prussian king astride his steed 

Was creaking up on high. 
But in the hearth I toasted toes 

And drained my bumper dry. 
And who would be a creaking king 

To baffle every breeze 
If he might sit within the bar 

And catch an eye at ease ? 

Oh, many a flower is in his fields. 

And many a rill of water. 
But lovelier far than all, I trow. 

Is the landlord's only daughter ! 
Then ho ! mine host, another dram. 

Draw on till kegs be dry, 
I'll pledge her though I creak to bed 

Like him who creaks on high. 



COMRADE EASE 

TTAIL, sweet fellow, slow-foot Ease, 

■*■ ■* Habited in hue of trees. 

Humming now a catch or call 

To the robin on the wall. 

Now with whistle, lazy-sweet. 

Tuning unseen dryad feet 

Till the frolic stirs the grass. 

As when long-skirted night-winds pass ! 

Come, with open book forgot. 

Musing down a garden plot. 

Or with yawn and noonday nap. 

In the shady clover's lap. 

Where an oak doth tune her leaves. 

Or some piteous runnel grieves. 

Plaining for her waters spread 

To no river's royal bed. 

Yet, sweet Leisure, knowing not 

Contentment lies in lowly lot. 

Greeting thou dost love, I guess. 
Of a sylvan simpleness : 
And I vow thee country quiet. 
Laughter pitched afar from riot. 



21-5 



214 COMRADE EASE 

Rather found in twinkled eye 
Than in leap and uttered cry ; 
And a speech both sage and jolly. 
Threaded through with melancholy 
Slow — with little rippled shocks 
Like a stream at sudden rocks. 
Over side-glance pun and jest ; 
And wisdom most in motley drest. 

Ease, if thou wilt stay and be 

My comrade, no satiety. 

But nature's mean shall be our share : 

Cresses and fruits and sweet wood-fare. 

Leaf-shaded days, and drowsy nights, 

A year-long round of plain delights. 



ARCADY 

ON SEEING THE WORD IN A BOOK OF CRITICISM 

\ RCADY ! the word has made 

The rain, the mist, the rabble fade. 
And in a corner of a:copse. 
Playing on his oaten stops, 
Tityrus ripples rounds of song 
Forever, to a tiptoe throng. 

'Twas in a book of empty phrase. 
Where truth was hunted through a maze 
That shut the sky out, tall and dark. 
Of little leaf and withered bark : 
There, weary with the flying skirt 
Of beauty doubling through the dirt, 
I came, as one at top of hill. 
Sudden on meadow, lawn, and rill. 

See how the green slopes to a vale ; 
The leafage bends to a little gale 
Of breeze, that seems to be the print 
Of some light-walking spirit in 't ; 
See how, outside the tilting trees. 
The grass grows up to the shepherd's knees, 

215 



2l6 



And how, within their rings of shade. 
The floor hath rugs of leafy braid ; 
And here, below the even boughs. 
Look slanting down and see the cows 
At pick and bite about the dell. 
And dairymaids at the willowed well. 

And were it better pipe unheard 
Feeding of honey and clean curd. 
Corn, and the fruits the breezes pull 
When autumn limbs are bending full. 
Lusty of thew and tanned of face 
From sun-kiss and the air's embrace. 
Loving the thatchen eaves of home. 
Where swallows build and crickets come. 
And voices of the melting night 
Sing thought too sacred for the light — 
Yea, were it better flute unheard 
Than build and build the Babel word 
That, neighboring some unlooked-for sky. 
Falls into dust, nor knows not why ? 

God wot ! And yet that word to me 
Outsweetens knowledge — Arcady ! 



OF A LITTLE GIRL 

OOPHIST, what had you to do 

^ With the leaves the light dropped through ? 

You were very wise and deep. 

Yet the sunlight took a peep 

Into this and t'other line. 

Showing you were over-fine. 

Came a little laughing face, 

Sady, full of life and grace. 

Tingling like a juicy pear 

With the blood by health put there : 

Sady came and lisped a word. 

Then your wisdom, like a bird 

That has been a long time kept 

From the happy azure, leapt 

Into laughter that was true. 

And yet was never found by you. 

Though you hunted, pen in hand. 
Till the ocean turned to sand. 
You'd not find a thing more sweet. 
Good, and true than just that fleet. 
Tiny, puckered laugh of hers 
Through the whole wide universe. 

19 217 



2l8 OF A LITTLE GIRL 

Sophist, if you seek the truth — 
So you say — why, come, forsooth. 
Some long, tranquil afternoon. 
When the sun's in the arms of June, 
Under age-old apple boughs 
There beside the weathered house. 
Come and hearken Sady laugh. 
And you'll quick give up the half. 
Knowing here's the very whole : 
Truth itself; a human soul 
Sitting in between two cheeks 
Rosy as the lattice, weeks 
After May has climbed and hung 
Buds in every trellis rung : 
Just a little soul set in 
One round, dimpled little chin ; 
Looking, like a laugh to be. 
Out of two eyes bashfully ; 
Rounded into dimpled wrists ; 
Lurking where a mouth insists 
Being like a berry, till 
Parted when the laughters spill — 
Hunt the soul out if you can. 
Sophist, through the mighty plan 
Of the starry circles or 
In some spirit metaphore ; 
But, when you have failed and need 
Very truth and truth indeed. 



OF A LITTLE GIRL 2I9 

Come, my Sady come and see. 
Just as tail's the timothy 
Growing at her father's gate. 
Where the apples patter late ! 



UNDER-TREE 

TJ ANGER of the rooted wood, 
■*- Gray of mantle, green of hood- 
Chestnut, tell us of the year : 
What your barken senses hear ! 
What of May, with winged tread 
Dappling down the drearihead ? 
What of autumn, blowing flutes 
Underneath the winey fruits ? 
What of summer ? What of snow ? 
Tell us how they come and go ! 

After all our winter sleep. 
When no other motions creep 
Through our branches, save the chill 
Of the frost-work fine and still. 
Save the madness of the moon 
Staring through her frozen swoon. 
Or the rush of slanted rain. 
Or longing to be green again ; 
After all our winter sleep 
Tickling sap begins to leap. 
Winds with summer in their throats 
Whisper long melodious notes, 
220 



UNDER TREE 



Carols come that make us think. 
Wheat leans over winter's brink. 
Grasses slit the soaked snow. 
Buds about our shoulders blow. 
Laughters echo, shadows creep. 
White-head flowers begin to peep — 
After snow and winter sleep ! 

Then, with all our silken dress 
Rustling in the wind's caress. 
And the grasses, tender-tall. 
Making for our feet a wall. 
And the sun in latticed light 
Streaming down the leafy flight. 
As if oriels in our roof 
Lay open for his bright behoof — 
Then, with foot-prints in the grass. 
Comes a checker-kirtled lass ; 
Comes a yeoman, harvest-brown. 
With wheat-ears stuck about his gown. 
And a can of curdled cream 
Swinging from his sickle's beam. 
And a kerchief, where are tied 
Meat, and bread, and more beside. 
So, with many a matron's turn. 
She spreads the cloth and fills the urn. 
And then they sit and take their bite, 
O'ershadowed by a leafy light. 
19* 



UNDER-TREE 

And, after, leaning at our bole, 
A true-love catch together troll ; 
Or sit and muse the mellow vows 
Warbled amid the under-boughs. 

Next, a tingle in the air 
Pinches to our jointage bare. 
And we shudder. Is't the breeze 
So shaking all our symmetries ? 
Nay, we shudder, all a-chill. 
Divining yet a later ill. 
Though the brilliance of the blue. 
Like a clear eye, seemeth true ; 
Though we laugh the fear away — 
The frolic's but another day. 

For hark ! Instead of silver noise 
Of leaf with leaf in losel joys, 
A husky murmur in our throat 
Forgets the glad midsummer note. 
So for one day — then, at night. 
Once again the frost is white. 
Once again the staring moon 
Rides it in her witches' swoon ! 



I 



A MODERN ECLOGUE 

F I were Daphnis on the green 
And you were Delia dancing. 
And sheep were where the shadows lean. 

By bite and bite advancing ; 
If I were lowly shepherd lad. 

With only pipe and true love. 
And you were Delia, russet-clad. 

How sweet it were to woo. Love ! 

'Twould be a thatch with trellis leaves 

We'd live in and we'd love in. 
With twitter at the twisted eaves 

When morning broke above in. 
If I were lowly shepherd lad. 

With only pipe and you. Love — 
'Twould be a dream that Boucher had, 

A dream that Watteau drew. Love. 



2Z3 




THE FOOTPATH WAY 

When early dew's atop the ground. 

And leafy shadow under tree. 
And song is full of a silver sound. 

Caught out of oaken Arcady : 
When all the pipes that once could be 

Make echo by the running rill. 
When morning lets her locks go free — 

Then, hey ! for the highway overhill ! 

And, oh ! if leaves be brittle browned. 

With rumor like a shallow sea. 
And wood and rutted furrow wound 

In drift that crackles to the knee. 
When katydid and buxom bee 

Grow surfeited and loose of will. 
When eld's acold and turns the key — 

Then, hey ! for the highway overhill ! 
224 



THE FOOTPATH WAY 225 

But, whenever the world's a whited round. 

And winter blows a roaring glee. 
And, overmead, the brooks are bound. 

And noises double down the lea ; 
If ingle huggers sip their tea. 

And gossip take a touch of ill ; 
If winter wind 's " no enemy" — 

Then, hey ! for the highway overhill ! 

Comrade, though fortune turn and flee. 
Though duty hound, though custom kill. 

No tyrant holds the turf in fee — 

Then, hey ! for the highway overhill ! 



A PORTRAIT IN DISTEMPER 

A S if the sun had kissed and fled. 

So were her cheeks embrowned : 
A little dot of dainty red 

Inside a russet round. 
Like rose-leaves that are almost dead. 
With slender sereness bound. 

A hat thereto of plaited hay. 
Which shaded half her face. 

Whence fell the curls of hair away 
Down to her collar's lace. 

That trembled if she talked, or lay 
In loops of yellow grace. 

A kerchief laid about her breast 

Unto her breathing rose. 
And midway was a little nest 

For beauty to repose ; 
But laughter made more manifest 

The sweets therein adoze. 

Ah me ! I've tuned a tender flute 

By all her garden ways : 
2,26 



A PORTRAIT IN DISTEMPER 22/ 

Apollo playing ripe the fruit, 

I vow, no sweeter plays ; 
And yet she'll never hear my suit : 

Young Midas better pays. 

Blow, breeze, about her ringlet curls 

And twist them in a knot. 
And blowse her skirts with blust'ry whirls ; 

And, sun, shine over hot ; 
Hang in her eyes a pair of pearls. 

Night, for she loves me not ! 



AFTER RAIN 

/^ ROBIN, when the leaves are wet. 

And when the herbage bends with rain, 
I hear a mimic pipe, lip-set. 

As if 'twere Pan made young again. 

A tempest in Hesperian trees ; 

The winds in cedared Sicily : 
Thy little throat brings hither these 

And fluters on Arcadian lea. 

Yet once again a Dorian mouth 
Dares whistle in the carven reed ; 

Again the musical, warm South, 
The idle-noted South, is freed. 

And what was sung across the isles 
From golden galleys Delos-bound 

I hear again through sapphire miles ; 
And dim, Homeric battle-sound. 

Interpretess of time thou art. 

For Nature that was young in Greece 
Flows young in thee. Thy tiny heart 
Hath casketed her mysteries. 
228 



AFTER RAIN 



229 



'Twas Nature blew the pipe of Pan ; 

'Tis Nature in the vocal trees ; 
Pipe, Robin ! it is Nature's plan 

To save in song w^hatever flees. 



£^f^ 




